Pansies near the solstice

I loved pansies as a child, mostly, I think, because my grandmother urged me to pick them, telling me that the more they are picked the more they will bloom. Very true! What I appreciate about them now is that as spring turns to summer the blooms get smaller and decidedly more dainty as long as they are deadheaded regularly.

Here they are getting engulfed by calendulas, bachelor's buttons and zinnias. Sometimes pansies will seed themselves for the next year in which case they will often revert to their original form, the wild Viola tricolor 'Johnny jump-up', the ancestor of the modern pansy.