Every year around March I go on a search for blue pansies. They are the first annual flowers that appear in the garden shops and local markets, and they are a certain sign that winter is over. I always grab some of these as soon as they appear, and put them in a pot outside my kitchen window on my balcony.
Spring in Toronto can be so capricious. One day feels like summer, and the next day you are looking for your parka and gloves. Weather has been up and down in Toronto for several weeks, warm days alternating with frigid ones. We’ve had a few nights in late April go down to zero. Frost warnings! Aieeeee! Canadian spring can drive you crazy.
But one thing has been a constant this spring: a reminder, that whatever the weather does in these last throes of winter/spring/winter/spring my frost hardy pansies will continue to cheerfully bloom outside my kitchen window. Proof that it really is spring. Technically.
Not only have my pansies been blooming continuously for the past month, but whenever I go outside to temporarily bask on a warm afternoon, deadhead, or slosh some water on them, I’m hit with their lovely, heady fragrance.This year I got a pot of orange ones and a pot of purples, and the orange variety seem particularly fragrant.
Pots of pansies in spring. Gotta get ’em. Gotta love them.
