The Mysterious Garden Muse

Three bookcases of garden books, countless other bookcases of books I've read, and one bookcases plus several stacks (like the one shown here) of books that are waiting to be read! I read fast, but obviously not fast enough!

We've been talking about pansies on the Garden Book Club board at BN.com, so I dug out this article that I wrote about five years ago.  The information still applies:               Pansies are sometimes considered an old-time flower favorite because they have been around for years and they never really go away.   Kids like them because of their friendly flower “faces,” while garden lovers favor them because they will bloom even when winter’s chill is in the air.   Whether they are planted in a solid mass of a single color, or a vibrant mix of many-colored flowers, pansies are a welcome sight in early spring, when bulbs are about the only other flowers in bloom.   Landscape contractors like pansies because they can plant them in beds, borders and even baskets and they will look good for weeks at a time, during the transition from spring to summer.             Pansies and violets are often confused, but generally speaking, pansies are annuals and violets are perennials.   Both