Precipitation and pansies

My forays into the blogosphere have, of late, been few and far between. I have found a foolproof way of guaranteeing rain: make plans for a walk. The amount of rainfall lately has been prodigious. I went out to change the seed in one of our bird feeders only to find that an earlier batch, clearly of wheat, had germinated.

Seed has germinated in one of our bird feeders. Stefen Hill, Daventry.

10 November, 2019

Getting the lawn mower out to deal with it was an absolute bugger!


It has been cold too, and we awoke a couple of days ago to find every roof white with frost.
 

The gardens are NOT at their best, with flowers almost non-existent. There are a few flowers on the Regal Pelargonium, Pelargonium grandiflorum, but following the frost the plants may be moribund. The nectar guides on their petals stand out boldly but few insects will be using them.

The nectar guides are very obvious on this regal pelargonium.

Stefen Hill, Daventry. 10 November, 2019



Speaking of nectar guides, they are very distinct on the only other flowers currently present in our garden. I refer to the pansies in one of our hanging baskets.

Curious plants, pansies. I have always felt that they have a vague resemblance to Busy-lizzies (Impatiens species) but alas, on checking it seems that no one else accepts any relationship. They take their name from the French pensee, a thought (pensive comes from the same root).

Against a yellow background the nectar guides on pansies stand our clearly.

10 November, 2019

Several species of Viola have been used to produce our large-flowered garden pansies, but Heartsease, Viola tricolor, has made the largest genetic contribution and the generally accepted Latin name for our garden pansies is Viola tricolor var. hortense. The genus should be pronounced not like the musical instrument but as Vi'ola, with the accent on the first syllable. (But if people get it wrong, who gives a monkey's chuff.*) Heartsease seems to be a good example of the Doctrine of Signatures: God - or the gods - has given us humans signs indicating how the plants should be employed, with the heart-shaped leaves suggesting that the plant could be used to ease heart problems; lungwort has blotches on the leaves to suggest diseased lungs, and so on. However, although herbalists have used the pansy in many ways, from reducing flatulence to making a lotion for bathing sore eyes, it does not seen to have been used for heart problems (or it may have been used before deciding that it was ineffective.)

In the height of summer I see the occasional insect visit garden pansies including ladybirds feeding on the numerous aphids which may gather on them, but the plants are not likely to feature in a garden designed with wildlife in mind. In the open countryside it is a different picture with several butterflies depending on viola/pansy plants in the caterpillar stage. About six species of fritillary butterflies in the U.K. including the High Brown, Pearl-Bordered and Silver-washed are found on wild violets but whether they occur on garden pansies I doubt. If your pansies have been eaten then snails and slugs are the likely culprits. In their hanging baskets our pansies should be beyond the reach of these voracious gastropods.


Daffodils and croci are pushing through but we have a few weeks to wait for flowers.

* chuff. A very rude dialect word originating in the north of England, referring to a lady's er … birth canal.