stand here, be awesome

My mother loves pansies, saying they look like little faces.

I try to get her some every spring early in the season.

Sometimes they self seed the following year escaping her merciless weeding.

Once the bloom is gone, she clears the path for tomatoes, her number one crop, top banana (so to speak) in her city garden.

The cutest thing in the (plant) world must be purple and yellow johnny jumpups

in a clump between cracks in the pavement.

Beautiful and temporary.

Don't get me started thinking about plants that went by the wayside in my life.

A few years ago someone (I suspect a member of a construction crew lunching on our front stoop) took a 5-gallon container with oleander from in front. 

A week later, the second one disappeared.  I kicked myself for not locking it up behind a gate.

Other losses to theft: A Meyer lemon tree in a container I could only push along, due to the bricks I put inside to discourage thieves.  They must have enjoyed the challenge. A palm underplanted with caladium.  Individual tomato seedlings in rapid succession.  All from the front.

Neat freaks can be inadvertently  or passively/agressively vectors of destruction too.

One year pansies seeded in cracks in a wall, those were plucked by a dear,

although overzealous relative.  Another time someone "cleaned" away moss I was cultivating on the patio. Yesterday (?) someone "helpfully"  dug up and pulled the roots of lambquarters I was happy to find and harvest in my plot of a community garden. I read about lambsquarters, purslane, wood sorrel being common "weeds" chockful of goodness. 

I took the roots and reburied in another section.  I'm hoping they'll spring back.

Sweet arrangement, dainty, tender, diminutive flowers. 

A little incongruous in a giant modern planter on busy, downtown  street.

Pavement and asphalt in every direction. 

Incongruous also to see a chalk drawing on the sidewalk downtown.

Stand here, be awesome, see yourself onscreen.

Smile for the camera.

Or look for a dark corner.