Pansey Diplomacy

One of the first things that struck me about our apartment building was the planter along the sidewalk leading to the door, devoid of plants. With the early rains of Sonbahar, little green things started springing up. I watched closely in hopes of something interesting, but there was nothing but little green weeds. At least the color was better, but I really wanted flowers. It was time for planting pansies in Atlanta and there were flats of them at the flower shops, but the price per flat was just a multiple of the individual price and much too expensive for filling an area of any size.

One early evening as I was coming home, I met a neighbor looking at the front area plantings. He’d lived in the U.S. for three years as a graduate student so has great English. We talked a bit about the dead tree and how it should come out. He explained that a couple of years before, water supplies in Ankara were becoming critical and watering was banned during the really dry weeks. I sympathized after leaving Atlanta in a drought. I couldn’t resist saying how nice it would be to have flowers in the planter and was delighted that he agreed.

It turned out that he is the apartment representative who is responsible for collecting the monthly fees for central heating and arranging for communal repair work. While interested in having flowers, he had no experience in gardening. I do miss puttering in my garden, so volunteered to plant the flowers if the apartment bought the plants. He gave me a tool – a spackling blade, but better than my best tool, a large spoon. The next day, we went in search of plants. He could at least talk to the flower shop owners but couldn’t get a better deal on the pansies which made me feel better. We did, however, learn of real nurseries on the edge of the city by a large cemetery. He has a car, so off we went. At that time, everything was an adventure for me, and he said that he’d never seen plant nurseries. (Lots of education is missed in engineering schools.) I got to see new parts of Ankara.

The nurseries were great - there was a whole street of them. Several flats of pansies, ornamental cabbages, and bags of soil later, I was back digging up the little green weeds. I was disappointed that they didn’t have tulip bulbs. Tulips deserve their own blog post. The digging and planting took several days over the next week. I was delighted when he bought me a real trowel. Perhaps the best part was that I met all of the apartment neighbors. Everyone was interested, some a bit skeptical about whether it was too late for planting, but all seemed to like having flowers.

Neighbors are normally reserved, not really unfriendly. Now they may still think I’m strange, but we greet each other having met over pansies. I got to plant flowers which are hanging in there. I was happy to see the city planting flowers a couple of weeks after me, so was reassured that it wasn’t too late.

All in all, flowers make a great starting point for getting to know neighbors everywhere.