THE MULBERRIES - Part 1 of 2

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I have 3 pretty pots of what I thought were pansies in the garden on the roofdeck. Nonetheless, they are The Mulberries and I was so sure there'd be none this year.

That's another story and I'll eventually get around to telling it in Part 2, but before we go there, let me show you the two new variations I grew, this year, and the story about them.

 They're not exactly on brand,

  colour-wise, but

  they're cared for & coddled nonetheless!

  

And they've helped me get closer to the root of this obsession!

Let's begin with a short video clip showing the view from my roofdeck hammock as I start sewing The Mulberry couture-finished, fabric print Furoshiki and/or The Long Sarong.

My first encounter with The Mulberries was in the Spring of 2021.

And as temperatures dropped in January, 2024, I felt a slight panic rising as I thought I might not have any more of their random pansy progeny popping up in pots this Spring.

Last summer, some little Mulberries began poking their fancy little Easter bonnets up and out of wayward pots hidden in places I'll never know now how I ever happened to spot them ... AND I realized I couldn't count on this ever happening again.

Two years before, I'd had no Mulberries.

How I'd even managed, I have no idea.

The owners of the garden centre I originally got them from, back in 2021, hadn't been able to find them again the year after ... and after they and I (and a few more enlisted gardeners) dove down deep into all the rabbit holes we knew of, we discovered nobody in Canada seemed to get their hands on them either.

So much for them in the Summer of 2022.

This threatened to continue through 2023, but then, as mentioned, some seedlings began sprouting ... randomly ... in pots ... like little Christmas Miracles ... in April, right around Mom's Birthday!

I'm just sayin' ...

I first noticed a few unusually fancy leaves growing in a little old soil-filled pot I dug out from behind some larger ones in the roofdeck greenhouse. I watered them (rather than rip them out so I could use the pot) and to my great shock and awe, a few exotic long leaves developed signature bumpy pansy leaf edges and starting budding a few slightly sickly rusty mulberry "pansy blossoms' and then another pot did the same and another and another ... and this merry-go-round circus of cuckoo pops saw me through the entire Summer of 2023. They were that years favourites and were handled with the carefullest of kid-glove gardening. I didn't care that they were pale, fragile, ghostly versions of their former selves ... they'd all come back to Mama!!!

It was 2023 and I was smiling all Summer and knew I was as spoiled as they were.

Then - the very idea of not having any in 2024, clicked, and hit like a brick in early January 2024 causing me to panic-purchase random pansy and viola seed packets in a flurry of questionable colours off the internet.

I held small hope any would actually grow, never having grown them before, but I peppered new trays of potting soil with their tiny seeds ... sowed and watered them religiously that Spring ... and lo and behold teeny tiny green leaves sprouted under lengths of grow lights lined up along my small hall wall. And they didn't do much more than that for about 3 months and I wasn't entirely sure I wasn't coddling some weird old weeds from old soil.

But I persisted, as did they ... as we all do these days.

In early June I put them outside and around mid-July one of two pots shot out dozens of pretty little flowers almost overnight. It gave me hope for the second pot I'd continued watering. And one day, many moons later I saw a rather big bud beginning in the 2nd pot. More water ...

And soon enough I had the set you see posted above of yellow & purple newbies vying for attention ... jarring with the aesthetics of my entire colour scheme, but harmoniously complementing one another rather handsomely.

AND I just love them!

Cut to one of the Chase(s) ... I think the one I'd tagged Violas are probably Pansies and the one with the Pansy tag is most likely a Viola.

I really hadn't paid any attention to the differences between the two before; but, that said, I did remember I'd had run into The Mulberries being referred to as both Pansies and Violas ... and more than once. But, I checked - they were sold to me as Pansies originally.

Curiosity got to me and I realized my next task was to figure out the difference between them ... and to see if the labels were right or wrong ... even at the risk of having to rename all upcoming posts and product descriptions in my shop for the new line of Furoshiki scheduled to land there ... sometime soon-ish.

There's been a 'Coming Soon' banner in the shop for a year or so now.

Eeek. I know.

 

NOTE (for those following me on Instagram) ...

I've been able to determine the length of the 1st Silk Modal Furoshiki (after a flurry of thread-pulling attempts at finding straight edges). It's a cool  36" long x 48" wide and as it's been designed as a multi-functional piece, and because I like the sound of this, I've also called it A Long Sarong.

From what I've been able to gather, they are as close to a perfect hybrid as it gets ... they have all the qualities of both a pansy and a viola ... and so I'm going to start calling them Pansiolas (which while it does mean doing a lot of dreaded editing, I think it's only right).

 

I say supposedly, because violas are said to have three petals pointing down, but I don't see it. In the examples provided, I see three petals at the bottom that are different. Maybe, that's what they meant? 

If anyone has information to help me better understand any of the differences between pansies and violas, please drop your comments below.

What I do know is that these fiery yellow, burnt orange and burgundy Mulberries seem more delicate and fragile and prolific that pansies proper ... so maybe they are more likely a lovely cross between the two.I base the majority of my case on this, and size and shape!

They definitely seem to have the best qualities of both.

So that's the intro to their true story (and I'm sticking to it).

The End

... of Part 1