Pansy

one of my favorite flowers is the sweet little pansy. i love the large flowery ones, the tiny viola and the sweet tiny johnny-jump-up. The little things always look so happy with their smiling little flowery faces. They are also known in folk medicine as Heartsease....used for things like whooping cough and arthritis

my work complex gardeners always (well for the last 10 years anyway) plant the flower beds with pansy's in the late fall. They sorta sit there waiting until sometime after Christmas and suddenly the flowers are all open and beautiful. This week is the week they are gorgeous! I have enjoyed seeing them as i come and go. The sad thing is that as soon as it gets a little warmer, about in early April, when they are looking extra beautiful the same gardeners will come along and yank them out.

It never fails to amaze me that they just yank them from the ground and toss them in a truck and they disappear--usually within an hour or so of the arrival of the grounds crew. We are talking at least several thousand plants in the entire complex. my heart breaks to see them so mistreated and man-handled (even though some of the workers are female)and tossed to the side..... only to be replaced by some sad looking wax begonias who struggle mightily to survive the long hot humid summer.

then in September---just when the begonias are beginning to look like they may live--- the process begins again and the begonias go the way of of the pansy's that proceeded them

snort-- if you look at the picture closely you will see somethingi never noticed before---the letters are falling off the wall