Squeezing Lemonade From Squabbles: How We Resolved A Diary Dispute

...and how to plant up a pot of pansies.

The spat was about calendars. I arranged a weekend away with friends. He swore blind he’d told me there was a work thing that weekend. I maintain that he did no such thing.

It is written, you see IN MY DIARY…what more proof do you need that we spoke about this and agreed upon it. It is IN PEN. Simple. Cue furious shouty outbursts (from both of us).

He can’t compute why I need a paper diary when everything would be so much simpler digitally. We are different. That is all. I need a visual, hand-written representation of my week, my month, my year. I need scribbles, and crossings-out and coffee stains if I am to stand a chance of remembering vaguely what people are supposed to be doing.

A calendar on a phone is laughable…useless to me…there is nothing visual to differentiate this week from next when I glance at it. Everything looks the same. It takes me twice as long to orientate myself, squinting at the phone where every day, week, month, year is identical…no takeaway menu book mark or sketch of a sleeping cat, or hastily cut and stuck-in quote to ground me in time.

We are different.

At times like these I sometimes flounce off, possibly slamming the door, and dash to the garden centre. I will probably buy something soothing there, usually to put in a pot. Today my Rotter has guessed where I am and he runs, literally, to find me. He likes running.

He turns up, just as I am about to leave with my small haul and is the first to apologise. We have an audience. Lou, the manager is there, and another cashier. I explain, laughing and rolling my eyes, that we’ve had a ‘mahooosive row’. Rotter immediately offers to pay for my spoils. I announce that he’s too late. Other people are listening now; someone titters “Too little too late mate”.

Then I tell him that I want the lemon pot.

I’ve been eyeing up the lemon pot for a few days. It is too expensive. I don’t need another cachepot, and that’s that.

I point to the lemon pot and everyone watches as he goes over, picks it up, looks at the price. At this point he knows there’s no way out. This is a crime scene. He’s just been mugged. He smiles. I smile. Everyone laughs. The pot is mine. Kiss. Squabble over.

I love it…do you love it? I’ve put supermarket daffs in it - JOY!

Now, pansies.

Hard frost makes me feel so happy.

Every edge of every leaf is sparkling and although I’m not an expert in all things ecosystems, I imagine nevertheless that this intense cold is bringing back some balance in the garden; doing away with some of the pests and diseases that have proliferated in the relative warm wetness we experienced last year. I like the thought of this, and I like walking outside early in the morning and listening to the stillness.

I wanted to show you my pansies because I am enjoying them so very much, and because I notice that there are loads of pansies, much reduced, in my local garden centre, and they are the loveliest way to bring colour and joy to your life in just one pot by your front door, or on a table outside that you can see from a window.

I used to do this often, particularly when I started gardening on windowsills, but, distracted by other things, I haven’t used pansies for quite a few years and looking at them and how utterly fabulous they are, I can’t think why. I planted these pots back in November, and I used some anemone corms beneath. The anemone leaves have now come through, adding an extra dimension to these pots.

If January is grating on you, if you are having a row with your beloved, or even if you are very happy and full of winter cosiness, then plant a pot full of pansies.

You need:

• A container: any size is fine but wide and shallow, if you have it, is preferable for the scale of these plants; look in the pic above how much more harmonious the proportions of the pot in front are, compared to the ones behind.

• A tray of pansies: You can find these in garden centres and nurseries now, often reduced. Each plant comes in its own ‘cell’ within the tray. I wouldn’t be too fussy about colour or type. You need to aim to plant them 3-5cm apart, so get enough to do that, in whatever size pot you choose.

• Multi-purpose compost

• Optional: Left-over bulbs. If you have any bulbs you’ve neglected to get in the ground you can put them beneath your pansies (yes even at this late stage, obviously as long as they’re appropriate for your pot).

Method:

Not essential but I like to use something like a piece of broken pot, placed over the hole in the base of the container, to prevent it from getting blocked up and the whole thing becoming waterlogged.

Plant your bulbs on a bed of compost first, then add more compost and finally plant your pansies on top, filling in the gaps carefully around each plant.

The most important bit of info here is this:

PICK THE FLOWERS

All of them.

If you do this, then your plants will continue to produce more and more flowers until you end up with something just magical and cushion-like. If you don’t pick the flowers you won’t get nearly so many.

So pick the flowers regularly and display them in tiny vases. They are honey-scented and perfect for putting by a bed.

Thank you for reading Nothing Important. I love writing about all these supremely unimportant things.

Please do me a giant favour and take a moment to ‘like’ this post if you have enjoyed it. Even better, please re-stack or send it to someone who you think might also like it.

Thank you as always for bothering to read and comment. I LOVE reading the comments chatting to you all here.

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Laetitia