American Plant Pansies and Violas

It’s that time of year - again. I haven’t really felt like getting the flowers for fall/winter for our tiny balcony garden. It’s been cloudy and rainy all week and just doesn’t put me in the planting spirit. And a couple of the summer annuals are still blooming. We only have three baskets to fill and it’s nice that we can continue doing what we have always done - just on a much smaller scale. The baskets hang from the backs of the chairs and face the street. In fall we turn the flowers towards us so we can view them from the living room. The cushions are removed and stored inside. So we drove over to American Plant in search of winter pansies. Before we got to that section we passed by the always colorful sights of the season - pumpkins, gourds, and mums that were everywhere. Many of the pumpkins and gourds were quite creepy looking - not your average round and smooth specimens. Of course there were Halloween decorations too, but I prefer the natural to the man made products. There were fields of mums in all colors. But we don’t have the space for anything like that. Yellow pansies are always a favorite and we ended up picking twelve small containers - four items for each basket. I’m going to leave the spikes and the ivy in and hope to squeeze in the rest of the red and white pansies and violas. Even though it’s a small space it does take time to get it right. So I’ll wait for a sunny day to do the update. I can’t believe summer is over!