Nothing is more like gambling, for me, than gardening. Between the individualities of plants, the unpredictabilities of weather (we do try to predict, but nevertheless ...) and all the many factors of location, amount of light, etcetera, gardening really never ceases to surprise.
This last winter, however, the plant world of my garden exceeded itself. The most unique situation was the pansies. Every fall we plant pansies because they are my mate's favorite plant, although he has learned to like many others over time. Anyway, I had planted several pansies in a largish pot so that we could see the blooms from our dining table. Then I had planted several in pots on the patio for just winter color, and finally more in the concrete pots in the front, that hold pansies in the fall and winter, and begonias that I carry over the winter in the garden room, and replace the pansies for the spring and summer.
Ah, but then we had a weather episode of three nights in a row when the temp fell to 20 degrees after some mild days. That combination can slay many hardy plants. The pansies in the front pots did fine, but the pots on the patio and the one across from our dining room window suffered and eventually, to all purposes, simply perished. At that time I had no opportunity to replace the apparently dead pansies, and truly, I know a dead pansy when I see it. Flat and brown, etc. But ... sure enough, as milder days came along, there were these tiny green leaves coming out of the flat brown former plants. Cynically, I figured they were weeds. And yet they looked liked pansy leaves, so I left them alone. Then as more growth showed up, the pots were fed and watered, and the new pansy plants bloomed.
That isn't even the best of the story, quite. For today, on July 4, with weather in the mid to upper 90's, the big pansy pot still has pansies blooming. No one could have ever persuaded me that pansies would continue blooming in July in this heat, but the pansies could!
