The Perfect Pansy

I love growing pansies and violas. They are great to have in a winter garden. So versatile and many varieties can withstand cold temperatures (ahem, similar to those we are presently experiencing here in the UK, but hopefully my pansies are hidden safely somewhere under the snow in the 'Foragefor' garden!).  Their blooms are so endearing and as my mum is known to repeat, “Just look at their little faces!"

For me they are vintage icons,


seen here on old tins,

postcards

and beautiful Victorian family photo album page

So what would you do with them? 
Well, I have a few suggestions to get you started...




You could just simply cut and bunch them into gorgeous posies or remove the flower heads and float them in a lovely container.

You could press them and use them for decoration.  They are beautifully fragile when pressed, like tissue paper.  They don't keep their colour as well as some flowers but this fading just gives them an extra vintagey edge!

They are edible so you could use them in so many 'gastronomic' ways:


In drinks, as ice cubes,

or use various coloured flowers to colour code drinks that partygoers can keep hold of all night, purple for Pete, yellow for Yasmin, frilly for Fred and so on, get those imaginative juices flowing.  Of course I know that we are now well and truly past the party season and into the season of resolutions and moderation so of course none of the drinks pictured in this blog contain alcohol!

Use them fresh in salads or sugared on cakes, meringues or any dessert.

....the perfect, petite, plucky, productive, pansy!