Purple Pansy Photo Set

Two purple pansies, one shaped like a butterfly and one pansy with a glow!

Butterfly Pansy II & Pansy Glow II

Pansies have a timeless, classic beauty. I found this purple and white beauty at a local nursery, and brought the plant home to grace our garden – after making pictures of it of course. 😉

The table they were on was filled with flats of pansies of all colors. Even among the masses of spring flowers, this particular flower captured my attention. It was the amazing glow, that you can see best in the second picture, that caught my eye.

The Pansy is always a favorite in the garden. The word pansy can be traced back to the French word pensée, meaning thought or remembrance. I’ve seen the meaning “loving thoughts” given to this little flower, and that’s one of my favorites.

There are some wonderful names given to pansies. Have you heard of “Jump Up and Kiss Me”, “Flame Flower”, or “Love in Idleness” for the lover who has little or no other employment than to think of his beloved one? “Heart’s Ease” is another favorite name given to the Viola Tricolor.

Many artists and lovers have been inspired by the pansy, including D. H. Lawrence and Georgia O’Keeffe . You may remember it was the juice of a pansy flower that was used as a love potion in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Pansies aren’t supposed to overwinter in Illinois, but they have come back a couple of times on their own to bloom for another season. That’s such a delightful surprise when they do! As long as the spent blooms are cleaned away, the plants will bloom prolifically. It can actually be enjoyable removing the spent flowers. You have a quiet time and really get to look at each little face individually. They are such charming flowers.

The images to the left are two views of the same flower, Butterfly Pansy II and Pansy Glow II. They were created as a set, and can be purchased separately through FineArtAmerica. The links in the first sentence of this paragraph will take you directly to each image.

Perhaps no flower (not excepting even the queenly rose) claims to be so universal a favorite, as the viola tricolor; none currently has been honored with so rich a variety of names, at once expressive of grace, delicacy and tenderness.