Pansy
Viola. wittrockiana and V. tricolor (both called pansy); V. cornuta (viola)
| Plant Type: Annual Uses: Border, Edging, Mixed Bed, Wildflower/Meadow...... Propagation: Seeds, stem cuttings Habit: Low, Bushy Light: Full Sun, Part Shade Flower Color: Various Blooms: Winter, Spring Width: .5 - .75 ft.; Height: .25 - .75 ft. Fertility: Moderately Rich Soil: Neutral, Well-drained Zone: 1 - 11 |
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Pansies are one of the most widely known and best-loved of all cultivated flowers. The choice of colors and markings on pansies is extraordinary. They can be found in almost any color, in shades from pale and soft to bright and vivid. For gardeners who love blue flowers, pansies are available in many shades of true blues. Pansies are freeze-resistant and will bloom from planting in the fall until warm temperatures come around again in late April. You can continue to plant pansies throughout the winter months and into early spring. They make excellent container plants, and using them in your landscape is an easy way to brighten up those gray winter days.
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The familiar pansy grows about 8 inches tall and has 2- to 3-inch flowers in many shades and combinations of yellow, pink, dark red, brown, blue, purple and white. Although a true perennial, the pansy weakens with the arrival of hot weather and is treated as a biennial. Plants blossom profusely from early spring to midsummer. The wonderful diversity of the colors and markings of pansies, hybrids originally created in Europe, has made them one of the best loved and most widely known of all cultivated flowers. Although they are tender perennials, pansies are at their best the first year from seed, and deteriorate rapidly thereafter, so they are usually grown as annuals or biennials. Pansies are low plants, growing about 8 inches tall. They are distinguished by delicately fragrant 2- to 3-inch flowers of five overlapping petals looking like gigantic violets, except that the colors are purple, white, blue, dark red, rose or yellow combined in almost endless variations of stripes and blotches. Often the patterns look like small, smiling faces.
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Viola flowers are similar to pansies but are smaller and generally come in solid shades of blue, purple, yellow and red, as well as white. Violas blossom from early spring until frost in Zones 3-7, from winter until midsummer in Zones 8-10. Violas, which grow 6 to 8 inches tall, bear flowers about 1 1/2 inches across, each with a slender spur. These come in a variety of solid colors: blue, yellow, apricot, ruby red and white. Violas usually flower longer than pansies, but their blossoms are smaller.
Violas and pansies grow in Zones 1-11. All do best in light shade and moist soil liberally enriched with compost or leaf mold. There are several ways to obtain pansies and violas for your garden. Most gardeners buy started plants and set them out in the spring; often such plants have already started to bloom. Set plants 8 inches apart. Pansies are easily grown from seeds. Seeds started indoors 10 to 12 weeks before the last frost is due will produce flowering plants by late spring. Seeds sown outdoors in late summer or early fall will produce plants that can be protected in a cold frame over the winter; set in the garden after the last frost in the spring, they will quickly start to bloom. In Zones 7-10, fall-planted pansies and violas grow through the winter and produce masses of color in late winter and spring, though they need to be replaced by other flowers when hot summer weather arrives.
Many types of violas can be started from seeds in the same manner as pansies, but named varieties must be propagated from stem cuttings or clump divisions in early spring for flowers the same season, or in early fall for flowers the following year.
Pansies and violas provide brilliant masses of velvety color in borders and edgings. They are handsome in pots and window boxes and make delightful small bouquets of cut flowers. Frequent picking keeps new flowers coming. They do best in full sun in most localities; where summer temperatures often exceed 80° they need light shade. Soil should be moist and fertile.
 © The Estate of Cicely Mary Barker |
THE
SONG OF THE PANSY FAIRY Pansy and Petunia, Poppy with its
pepper-pots, Black and Brown and
velvety, from "A
Flower Fairy Alphabet" |