Pretty maids all in a row

Linda and I have been doing quite a bit of planting of annuals in the garden lately.

We have a tricky piece of garden on the south side which never gets any direct sun and is usually cold no matter what the time of year is. We have put pansies there before and they have survived quite well so this year Linda has made a planting en masse of pansies and violas. We look forward to seeing how they develop.

There is also a garden at the front of our house which gets lots of sun and our plantings there are beginning to reward us already. We have both been quite taken with the cluster of pansies in this image. The look so crisp and fresh and have beautiful colourings and markings and these three together put me in mind of one of my favourite nursery rhymes:-

Mary Mary quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells and cockle shells
And pretty maids all in a row.

I even remember a nursery rhyme book we had, when we were growing up, that had this poem accompanied by a picture of a lovely garden with pretty pansies along the border.

Maybe, subconsciously, images like this may still influence the things we do in the garden today.