Pansy

Pansy. When I was a kid, that was a common insult to someone’s masculinity. I guess because pansies have such floofy petals? I don’t know. Peonies are rufflier. Anyway, growing up in the Sonoran Desert, I was more familiar with the insult than the real-life flower. So I was delighted to discover that pansies are actually really hardy little flowers. Seriously, they’re almost impossible to kill. They come in a bazillion cheerful colors and bloom during the gray days of early spring when everything else is still cowering under a layer of mulch. Pansies kick ass. And they sort of look like they’re smiling the whole time.