Where Did The Term Pansy As In Stop Being Such A Pansy Come From – Thinking of adding pansies to your garden this season? Pansies can be the perfect addition to many different flower combinations and are easy to create regional, effective, pansies for flower care in your flower garden. In this article, certified gardener Laura Elsner shares how to plant, grow and care for pansies this season!
Pansies are one of my favorite flowers. These ancient, long-lived perennials have such big, wide, smiling flowers. This is a clear sign that spring has arrived and warm weather is just around the corner. For those of you in zones 7-9, this is a sign that the summer heat is ending and cooler weather is coming.
Where Did The Term Pansy As In Stop Being Such A Pansy Come From
I’ve planted a ton of pansies over the years of gardening, well over 10,000 for sure! Vibrant colors and their intricately designed faces with rich patterns and colors make pansies a garden staple.
Red Blotch Pansy
They are easy to grow and easy to care for. They have many different uses in the garden, which I will focus more on. So sit back, drink some tea and let’s talk pansies.
Pansies are English flowers. In the early 18th century, Lady Mary Elizabeth Bennet grew, harvested and nurtured violas in her father’s garden. These violas were later crossed and evolved into the more flowery pansies we think of today.
At the same time, Lord James Gambier also grew and collected violas. In the mid-19th century, many pansies were grown in all types of English gardens. Currently, there are more than 500 species of pansies of various sizes, shapes and colors.
The typical garden pansy we know and love in our gardens today is a hybrid known as viola x wittrockiana. The parent flowers of this hybrid are viola tricolor. Better known as Johnny jump up, which is considered a weed (I don’t know, I like them).
Garden Pansy Salad
If you let your pansies self seed, Johnny Jump up is what they do. It could be another father
. These are all different types of violas that determine the size, shape and patterns of pansies in the garden. Hybridization of these species is what has been done
Pansies are easy to grow and propagate easily, making them a simple and inexpensive addition to the garden. Here are some ways to add pansies to your garden.
One of the most common and easiest ways to buy pansies is to buy them from a garden store.
How To Grow Swiss Giant Pansy From Seed
I’ll start with the easiest and most obvious way to get pansies. Buy them at your local garden store or greenhouse. These are cool season plants, so they can be purchased at this time.
To me, it’s early spring in a cold climate. But for those in warm climates, they are short-lived winter perennials that thrive in cold winters and roast in hot summers.
Greenhouses are often full of pansies of various colors and patterns. Buy what you like and look for attractive color combinations like deep purple perennials and bright orange perennials.
The following method is another popular way to get pansies for your garden. Start them from seed. You can collect your own pansy seeds, but be aware that many of the pansies we buy are hybrids. This means that the seed from the parent plant will not grow into an exact copy of the parent plant.
Southern Gardening: Introduce Color With Cool Wave Pansies (gary R. Bachman)
If you let pansies go to seed in the garden, they often produce sweet Johnny Jump-Up flowers, which are usually violas and are also considered a weed in some areas. They are beautiful, but if you like a certain type of pansy and want to make sure you get what you plant, it’s best to buy seeds.
Buy seeds from a trusted seed dealer. Many seed companies on the internet are full of wild and crazy plants that are not real. Try to find named varieties and research. Or go to a reputable horticultural store and buy seeds from them.
Pansy seeds should be sown very early. 10-12 weeks before the start of pansy season. Buy a container or container with drainage. This can be a purchased sowing tray with a lid. But it doesn’t have to be that good. Yogurt containers, berry containers, red solo cups, or plastic take-out containers work great.
Make sure whatever container you use has some decent drainage holes in the bottom so the water can drain away freely. Get a specially formulated starting seed mix (a potting mix will also work if you’re in a pinch). Fill the chosen container with the potting mix. Before starting, I like to mix the seed starter with water in a large tub. It should be evenly wet, like a wrung-out sponge.
Springtime Means Pansies Are Here!
Pansy seeds are very small. Spread it evenly over the containers, you may need to thin the seeds later. Lightly cover the seeds by burying them in the soil about ΒΌ inch. This is important because pansies need darkness to germinate.
After planting, I water the seeds to make sure they are all evenly moist. Cover the pansies with a dome-shaped lid, it should not be transparent, as they germinate in the dark. If it is a clear lid, make sure you choose a dark place for the seeds, such as a cupboard.
Now is the hardest part. Be patient. Pansies can take anywhere from 2 weeks to less than 2 months to germinate. Put in a dark place until the seeds start to grow. When they start to grow, remove the lid and place in bright light. If there are too many growing in one place, remove the weaker ones and let the strongest ones grow.
In May-June, green shoots with 2-3 nodes are cut from pansy bushes, planted in the ground, watered and straightened.
Pansies Growing Guide (plant, Grow, And Care)
Yes, pansies can be grown from cuttings. I’ll admit that I love growing plants from cuttings (I’m a coleus queen). But I usually don’t grow pansies from cuttings. I think it’s because I want to plant bigger, stronger pansies right away. However, it is quite possible to grow pansies from cuttings.
Take a 3-inch cutting from an existing pansy plant. Make sure it includes a node (the point where the leaf meets the stem). If you place this stem in water, it will grow roots. However, cuttings grown in water that take root are difficult to plant in soil.
So instead of immediately dipping the cutting in rooting hormone powder (not absolutely necessary, but it helps speed up the process), then place them in a container with the same moist soil. I cover the cut with a burlap or plastic dome cover for a week to preserve moisture.
Pansies can be monsters sometimes, I’ve seen them a foot wide. In this case, the pansies can be dug up and divided in half or perhaps even into thirds. Then replant them. Water all parts well and monitor them for the first week.
How To Care For Garden Pansy Flowers
In order for the seedling to grow healthy and strong, it needs to be watered and hardened in time.
Hardening off pansies is an important step, whether you are starting them from seed or growing them from cuttings indoors. Plants grown indoors are not used to the real elements that life outside brings. Don’t skip this step or all your hard work will go to waste. The whole process only takes a few days.
Start by taking your new pansy plants outside in the shade and leaving them there for a few hours, then take them out. The next day, leave it in the sun for a few hours, then again in the shade and then indoors. Gradually add more sun and then leave them overnight.
Water it during this process. If at any time they look wilted, move them to shade. Pansies are actually quite resilient and it should be a relatively quick and painless process.
Are Pansy Flowers Edible? Tips For Harvest And Use
Pansies have a nice and simple process when it comes to planting. Simply remove the plant from the container. Do not pull the plant by the stem or it will die. I put my thumb and forefinger in the pot and pull out the root.
Furthermore, if the pansies have been in the pot for a long time, they will take root. Make sure you divide the roots. I usually pinch the plant, dig in with my fingers and pinch it down the middle to one side, then do it again to make sure the roots are nice and separate. This is an important step. If you leave pansies with their roots in a pot, they will grow and suffocate
