I wiped away the weeds & foam. / I fetched my sea-born treasures home... Ralph Waldo Emerson







Thursday, January 10, 2013

Winter Pansies




Hi! Aren't these so sweet! I adore pansies...real or on china or fabric, wherever.



I planted these pansies in October. The sign at the garden store said Winter Annuals, but I was dubious. Of course bought them anyway. I can never resist orange and purple-black Halloween pansies...




These little guys are still blooming on my deck! Mid-January. I was so surprised to see them.





They've been through a hurricane, a snowstorm/nor'easter, a couple cold snaps. Maybe even a hard frost though it's warm again here, today it was 52* when I was at the thrift shop, away from the beach winds.






It was warm enough for me to get my red parrot tulip bulbs into my planters. I never planted them because we were evacuated, then it was Christmas. I could throw them out, or what the heck: ...plant them and hope for the best?

 
 


And there were all the pretty pansies still smiling bravely at me in the winter sun. Imagine that.
I snipped off a teeny tiny bouquet of the pansies.





They do have white flecks from the salt spray...





But pretty cute for winter, I think.



I
've had this china shoe for years. Made in Japan, c. 1950? Unfortunately, this morning with my usual compulsion to clean, I washed the polka dots off! [I painted them back on though, no worries.]
 



See the little blue rosette on the toe? Just like Snow White [Cinderella?], in the old Disney animated film where the bluebirds make the girl's dress and shoes.




I keep thinking I'll make it into a pincushion.
But so far...it's been a fun tiny flower holder, I love the ruffled edge, and orange color...and returning polka dots and all.


 


My parents' Cape Cod yard always had blooming  flowers in the winter...pink fairy roses, blue heather, bright yellow witch hazel. And my mom would would marvel at the  very notion of flowers in January, coming as she had from the frigid northern  Illinois winters. She always put tiny bouquets in her favorite old aqua glass inkwells, set them on her kitchen window ledge.
 
 
                                    
And since this date was once my mother's birthday I am especially happy to have found my little pansies.
Like a remembrance.




Anything in your garden right now?






love

   lizzy

......gone to the beach










self portrait, January