Feral Pansy

So, a few days ago I picked up some zinnias, marigolds, and wallflowers to plant in the yard,* mainly to protect other plants already there. And today I finally got them into the ground.

The marigolds went around the Mimosa (which isn't doing too well, unfortunately--the buds that'd been green earlier this spring have now disappeared).

The zinnias went around the day lilies, which only got set out about two months ago and have been mowed down twice already. Arrgh.

And the wallflowers got planted alongside the fence next to the feral pansy.

Feral pansy? Well, I'm not sure what else to call it. Pansies of course are supposed to be annuals, rather than perennials (so that they die every winter and you have to plant new ones every year). But for several years now I've noticed that on occasion one or two pansies will come up on their own in places where I'd had some the year before. At first I thought these were hardy survivors that somehow made it through the winter on their own. More recently, I've concluded that they're self-seeded from last year's plants.

In any case, a lone pansy (and a v. nice one, by the way) came up in a rather exposed spot where it didn't look to have much chance to make it, so I've now planted wallflowers in a row next to it, both to keep mowers away and to remind me to water it, come the dry season.

Flowers, check. Tomato plants, check. Magnolia-in-a-pot (now three of them, each about two inches high), check. Now if I cd just find a way to grow sunflowers again . . . We'll see.

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*pansies, because they're one of my mother's favorite flowers; zinnias, because I remember them from Monticello when I was growing up; and wallflowers because, while I only first came across them a few years ago, I kinda like them as a nice old-fashioned flower whose heyday was before my time.