A walk through the Pansies

So 2 years ago, I noticed that around here the professional landscapers pull out the summer annuals in the fall and plant pansies in their place.

And miraculously (to a Yankee Midwest girl), they keep their color all winter protected with snow cages and then come spring the beds aren't bare and ugly.

So I decided last fall that I would do this. I found clearance pansies at Ace; most of which weren't blooming anymore. I bought them anyway - really I just wanted them for the early spring bloom and so I crossed my fingers that they were actually going to bloom!

I planted them and that was that.

Went through a pretty brutal winter with snow after snow and oops - totally forgot to protect them with snow cages. Oh well - hope they come up!

Well, come springtime and they started blooming - woo hoo!

And that was when I discovered that I had planted them above spring bulbs...oh well!

By late spring they were in full force! Beautiful!  Not exactly varying in color much because remember - I had bought them when they weren't blooming and hoped for the best!

I figured by the beginning of summer they would die off - because they're pansies...spring flowers, right?

But they kept going crazy!

Even when everything else started growing up around them; they were very inconveniently placed for the bulbs that I had planted assuming they would have shriveled away by now!

By the intense heat of July I was flabbergasted - how are these still alive?!

And so my very crowded beds made me re-think my plan for next year!

But then I wondered: could pansies be perennial in certain zones?! If they survived this heat and made it to the fall, could we just go another round again...?!

No. No they cannot. Well, not here anyway.  

By late August they had finally shriveled away...which means I got close to 10 months out of those little guys! Not bad considering they were probably less than 50 cents each!

I did plant new pansies again in the fall after digging up and re-arranging bulbs throughout the beds.

I put the pansies in their own places so they wouldn't get choked now that I know they won't be gone as quickly as I had assumed!

They made it through the much milder winter we just finished and even kept some color! And of course now they are doing beautifully! (More pictures in the next post!)

So what was an "oops" from ignorance turned into beautiful, abundant, albeit extremely crowded spring through summer-worth of flowers and planning for this season!

The Accidental Transplants

After moving around our little compost heap several times for almost 2 years, we finally put it in its final resting place enclosed in the back corner of the yard and so began the miracle-making.

I mean seriously, how cool is it that you dump old scraps of all kinds and little wormies and friends and chemicals get to work producing this dark, gorgeous, lusciousness that plants looooooove.


And so in the summer as our little garden was struggling after an insanely soppy June and realizing that the LeafGro / Topsoil combo we'd bought may not have been the nutritious blend we'd desired, I began spreading some of the bottom compost. And it helped a lot!

Several weeks later as I'm tending to my various garden plants and the little weeds around the base of them, I think, "Ok, those look an awful lot like tomato plants....and those like squash plants! But how would those plants have gotten there? I wouldn't have planted them so close together?!"

And then it hits me.

The compost!

Yes, there I was transplanting dozens of fertile little seeds just waiting to be put into the sunlight before they can begin their life again!

[sigh]

Not under my tomatoes, peppers and beans, you don't!


Have I missed something about how compost is supposed to work?
Am I not waiting long enough? Letting it "compost" enough?
It looks so rich and wonderful! Of course any and everything wants to grow in it!!