Pansies 101: How to Choose, Plant, and Care For Pansies by The Gardening Tutor - Mary Frost 

This is such a lovely comment to see to start my day. Thank you so much Dental Higenius (your handle made me smile-ha!). Thank you for taking time to watch. -mary

Awesome. What a nice thing to read before I go to bed. Thank you for watching Petals! -mary

My Pansy seeds failed to germinate in winter Dec 2016 but now the seeds unexpectedly germinated in this summer season at 40*C day temperature and 25*C night temperature. Why so?

Thank you writing Nathaniel. Holy Cow is that 104 F in the day and 77 F at night. Whoa. Pansies are usually sown in July and August here in zone 9 for fall planting. The seeds are not buried deeply but they are scattered and then add a thin layer of vermiculite to the top of the potting soil. In my Demo Garden seeds that self sowed from last year's plants germinated about a month ago. Are you growing in a greenhouse setting or scattering seeds in your garden? I suspect it was too cold in December for them to germinate well. When I was running a greenhouse, it was too cold here to get germination in winter. -mary

Last year my pansy grew like Darwin's theory here www.hardytropicals.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=25248

Petals on the Paving Slabs Me too

Yes, you can let the flowers go to seed. Check daily to see when they are fat and ready (seeds dried out inside). Cut one open when young and then one that's older so you can see what's going on inside. But you'll need to harvest the seedpods before they blow themselves open and spread their seeds. Allowing seedpods to form will slow flowering though. Thank you for watching Paula. -mary

Hahaha! Happy soil, Happy plants, Happy gardener! :) Thanks Janette!

Thank you for taking time to comment dsjm123! Pansies can take full sun in the winter months because temps are cooler overall but in summer they will do best in dappled shade in the heat of the day. -mary

Hi adriankap, Congratulations on your pansies! Experimenting is what makes gardening so fun. I would place them where they get lots of morning sun but not hot afternoon direct sun. Let's see what happens. Let us know. -mary

Thanks for posting CheshireKat! It looks like you've answered some of your own questions: you think you bought pansies stretched already and it's hot, hot now in your garden. I'm so happy to hear that you have been deadheading them! Usually deadheading often and protecting from pests is what keeps pansies happy (well, beside watering and mulching). But in the winter when I'm growing them sometimes they start to stretch and I do prune them back a little bit. I have found though that if i prune them back too hard or prune every stem back at the same time, they fail to thrive. A lovely swap out for your pansies at this time of year might be lobelia with your begonias (if you can grow Lobelia erinus where you live). My pansies too do not always make seeds, maybe it's a pollination issue. -mary

Thank you so much Jimmy. I appreciate your time. Wishing you beautiful pansies from now on! -mary

Before i knew any better I too just removed the flowers and left the stems. haha! Thank you for taking time to comment. Really, if you think of the name "deadheading" (which I've always felt was an unfortunate name for the task) sounds like just cutting off the head of the flower. -mary :)

@@TheGardeningTutor other videos of this ive watched they jsut cut the dead heads off and they regrow in a weeks time no need to cut the stem

Interesting. When only the flower is snipped off that stem will not grow another flower. Old stems can attract insects (they want to clean up dead stuff) and old stems can also look unsightly. Experiment, let us know how it goes! -mary

@@TheGardeningTutor that's all I know from.warltching some other videos I've bought a few trays from a friend so I can test both methods

Awesome! I'm looking forward to how it goes. :)

You're welcome. Thanks for stopping by. -mary

You are not alone Elizabeth. I remember exactly what it feels like to look at the flowers and all of them seemed the same to me. New flowers will start at a pointed cluster of petals, then open fully to a happy pansy flower, then the edges will start to be a little limp and maybe curl inwards a bit, then the petals fall off and at the tip of the stem a little ball shape will start (this is where the seeds are growing) as the seeds grow the ball shape will get bigger and bigger until one day it pops open and seeds fly out. To get more flowers and trick the plant into thinking it still has to make more flowers for seed cut off the flowers (with the stem attached to that flower), once the flower edges start to do the floppy look. Let me know if this helps or not. Happy to hear you are growing pansies! -mary

Thank you for posting Nanette. -mary :)

You are so welcome. Thank you so much Cliff, you made my day! It's so wonderful to hear where people are posting from. -mary

You are so welcome Becky! Thank you for watching and taking time to write. :) -mary

Thank you for asking thunderlord. The only way to see if you can bring them back to full foliage is to shear the plants by at least half (perhaps more down to about 3 inches). Seeing gnats is usually a sign of over watering. If the soil has been over watered, allow the soil to dry out a bit to become moist but not soggy and then apply some liquid fertilizer (all purpose Maxsea is what I use). Let us know how it goes! -mary

Thank you for your kind words of encouragement Yaz Q. I'm in Santa Rosa we might be neighbors! :)

The Gardening Tutor you’re more than welcome! I’m in Mountain house, it’s a pretty new community/city about 5-10 min from Tracy and 20 min from Livermore. During summer it gets in the 100’s often so I think that’s the only difference. I believe it’s a bit cooler in SantaRosa. I wish I was closer to you I would be volunteering for you on a daily basis so I can learn from you lol. Thanks again!

Yes, you are hotter there in the summer for sure. Thank you for letting me know where you are it's so nice to know where people who are watching my videos live. :)

Thank you Kari Terhark!

Thank you for watching and posting Lillian! -mary

I name them hell's pansies

ugh! I hear you bowler8. It's most likely not you. Pansies can be tough to get going for sure. And yet, they can reseed themselves in the crack of a sidewalk and do great! Usually, here in zone 9, pansies are seeded in mid to late summer so the plants are ready to plant in September and early October while the soil is still warm but we are going into the cold weather pansies enjoy. Even when I was the head greenhouse person we had a hard time growing pansies from seed.Many times it's overwatering that kills them. There are some easier seeds to start from seeds such as sunflowers and cosmos. You may find my latest BLOG post about growing plants from seed helpful: thegardeningtutor.com/blog/f/seeds-tips-for-growing-food-and-flowers-from-seed Thank you for watching! -mary

Wow, that is so cool 827. Pansies are so hardy! thank you for watching and commenting. -mary

Pansies will do well until the days get really hot. In shade you may be able to keep pansies happier longer. Here in zone 9 I plant pansies in the fall, while the soil is still warm from summer, and get about 7 months of good blooming. They could limp along after that but by then I've already pulled them out to put in summer color. Thanks for posting! Let us know how your project goes. -mary

thanks for your reply, one more question, pine mulch or wood mulch?

Pansies prefer nice, yummy compost as their mulch. For instance, I tend a garden that does not use compost as mulch and many of the annual plants suffer, even some of the perennials would be happier with compost as mulch. I like to experiment though and would be curious to see the results of testing some with pine mulch, wood mulch, and compost. One thing you could do is put a one inch layer of compost as mulch around each plant and then cover with the pine or wood mulch.

The Gardening Tutor ok, thanks, I think i will try some pine bark nuggets.

You're so welcome Gloria. Thank you for watching. You can also watch my videos without ads on The Gardening Tutor Vimeo Channel. Have a great day! -mary

Congratulations Agusta for growing pansies from seed! It's funny, pansies can reseed themselves even in the crack of concrete but growing them from seed is a challenge. Ha! Thank you for writing. -mary

Welcome to gardening! Thank you for watching Carolyn. Starting pansies from seed can be a challenge for home gardeners. Since you live in snow country I'm guessing that your area plants pansy plants in spring instead of late fall like I do here in zone 9. Try the seeds in spring too but maybe you'd like to plant some 4 inch pansy plants also in case the seeds do not work out. -mary

Haha! Thank you Cindy! Yes, the more I know, the more I know I don't know. I feel that way too. I usually get flamed when I say I bait for earwigs. I've tried all kinds of ways to "trap" them or lure them with very poor results (although my cat loved drinking the wine or beer in the lure cans-not good!) At night while I'm hunting snails and slugs and I see earwigs in a plant I hold my bucket of soapy water under them and shake the stem and the earwigs fall into the water and die. Thank you for watching and commenting and being my New Biggest Fan! -mary

Thank you for watching Megan. Pansies suffer when overwatered. You can bring a pansy (and most plants) back from underwatering better than from overwatering. With hanging baskets get used to lifting the basket a little (just push up on the bottome) to see how heavy it is and than water it and feel how heavy it is. You can watch the plants too to see if they need water but the slight lifting of the basket each day will tell you when it's getting light enough to need a good soak again. Pansy plant leaves get slightly dull looking just before they wilt from not enough water. -mary

Of course keep them! What a nice gift. Water them and don't do anything else and see how they do. -mary

Pendlera, sorry for the late reply. Since I don't know about zone 8 it's hard to know what to suggest for foliage in winter. Here in zone 9 Sedum 'Angelina' loves the cold and rain of winter and adds a pop of chartreuse color to the garden. Veronica 'Georgia Blue' is a lovely, blue flowering, low growing ground cover that also looks good in winter and blooms late winter/early spring here. -mary p.s. also the ground cover Yerba Buena looks great in winter (container only since it can be an aggressive spreader) and it smells Amazing (like doublemint gum)!

Oh no Melo.dram.atic! If they are full grown plants, this sounds like too much water caused crown rot. My wholesaler overwaters pansies every year too, so you're not alone in that. This can happen with seedlings too. Gosh, I don't like to give bad news but if it is overwatering pansies do not usually come back from that. :( If you have some that are still not too far gone you can let them dry out until the container feels light when you pick it up before you water again. ooo, I'll be thinking about you and your project. Let us know how it goes. -mary

You are correct that sometimes pansies get mold or wilt in addition to damage from several pests.

Thank you Humanist. Pansies can reseed but they do not reseed here reliably enough so I buy new ones every year. I usually want to change up the color I'm growing anyway and I buy 4 inch size. Growing pansies by seed can be a real challenge. -mary

Thank you Norbs for taking time to watch and post. And you are so welcome, I love new gardeners sooo much! I remember exactly what it's like to be new. -mary

Thank you so much for sharing your story 1 love Waters. You have the heart of more than a succulent gardener! :) Be Well. -mary

Sorry for the late reply Dianne, been swamped at work. Every year I plant about 8 to ten flats of 4 inch pots of pansies. That's about 160 plants! Not all varieties of pansies do well in the Demo Garden all winter. I find that orange or black do not perform as well as purple and varieties that have a mix of purples and/or yellows do great! -mary

Hahaha! Love hearing about other words for things! Thanks Greg! -mary

Thank you for asking Lorianna. Sowbugs are the insects that eat the pansy roots. I use a bait for these. If you want to go completely organic with which bait you use, you can use Sluggo Plus. It must be the "plus" sluggo though because the regular Sluggo only kills snails and slugs. I have found that cats and rabbits eat Sluggo bait though sometimes. I use Deadline Bug Bait. Sowbugs are hard to control with just trying to hand pick them. Hand picking works better on snails and slugs.

You're welcome Scott.Thanks for watching! -mary

Oh, I wish I could tell you Eden. I'll look next time I'm at my wholesaler to see if they have it or can tell me. I'll get back to you! -mary ...I just looked in my envelope of labels (i write on the label where I planted plants and keep them in envelopes for quick reference) and found one that might be it, 'Ultima Morpho' there is another mix with deeper purple edges called 'Ultima Radiance Deep Blue' I'll still double check for ya.

You're welcome Charles. Thanks for commenting! -mary

It may be hard to get pansies to be happy indoors. I'd love to hear how it goes for you. They are cold hardy plants so try to keep them in the coldest part of the house. They also like full winter sun when planted outdoors and do poorly when they do not have enough sunlight. Try a soil-less mix that is just peat moss and perlite or coco fiber and perlite. Potting soil that has added bat guano or other fertilizer in it it can be pretty smelly. The basic potting mix has no nutrients in it so you'll need to fertilize you plants. All the best-mary

@@TheGardeningTutor thanks so much!

Thank you for watching surfnyolly. The new buds of pansy will be enlongated with new petals. An old flower drops its petals and leaves behind a small round shape that develops into a fat, round part full of seeds. If you want your pansy plant to keep blooming and not spend energy making the seedpod grow then yes, cut off that seedhead along with the stem connected to it (not the entire stem of the plant). The sooner you remove spent flowers the better. Waiting until they start going to seed slows the production of new flowers. Let us know how it goes! -mary

The Gardening Tutor oh wow! That’s really cool and I had no idea. I just kept leaving those thinking they were flowers! So let me ask a follow up, can I take that seed pod and plant it?

I really appreciate your time and your video was perfect!

If a seedpod is left on the plant long enough to dry the seeds inside will be ready to plant. There will be so many seeds, you will not believe it. Be easy on yourself when trying to grow pansy from seed though, they can be a little hard to grow (even though they can seed themselves in the crack of concrete-haha). You can cut one of the juvenille seedpods in half lengthwise to see the teeny seeds. -mary

Thank you for posting gureuskii. Pansies are winter hardy down to 20 degrees F. Here in zone 9 pansies have performed better than the smaller flowered violas through winter. I looked up avg. winter temps for zone 7 and it looks like you get much colder than 20 degrees. Is this what your garden experiences in winter? If so, maybe your temps get too cold for them. Better to plant in spring for you. -mary

@@TheGardeningTutor Thank you for your reply and the temps in Ga do tend to get under 20 at some point during the winter but I see commercial properties with flowers every year and I was wondering if they had some kind of trick they were using.. Thanks again for your response

How lovely to see fields of flowers in winter. You make me so curious as to which flowers they are growing. Here in my Demo Garden, as long as I plant pansies and Iceland poppies during the weather window of the last two weeks of Sept through the first week of Oct, they bloom for 6 to 7 months (with consistent deadheading)! I also plant some winter bloomers later, such as priimrose, cyclamen, the daisy flowered crysamthemum, and bellis perennis, because they don't need to be planted early. We do get some 19 degree nights in winter and during a real cold snap the 19 at night lasts for about 4 or 5 days but pansies pop right back every day when the sun comes out. -mary

I'm sure they are pansies and violas at a doctors office I go to and they are mass planted and in full bloom November through February and they are always full and beautiful. I just have no idea how they are accomplishing it.

Oh Zed, so sorry! What a bummer. If they ate the plants down then they most likely will struggle to come back. If they just ate flowers and left the foliage, they have a good chance of coming back. If you use deer repellent products, make sure to put the repellent at the outskirts of your property (or where the deer enter) in addition to placing it around the plants you want to protect. You're trying to stop them from coming into the garden in the first place. Deer repellent doesn't always work though.Let us know how it goes with the pansies. -mary

thanks for the reply! they left most of the foliage and there are some healthy stems with flowers still. I shall try my best. thanks again!!!

Oh good! I suggest deadheading all the flowers that are left (removing the flower with the stem of that flower) and giving some all purpose liquid fertilizer. Usually pansies make new flowers in just 2 or 3 days. Usually you'll deadhead flowers that are done but in this case remove all the good looking flowers too so that the plant gets the message to put on more growth.

@@TheGardeningTutor you are awesome. thank you so much for the help! I will update you!

@@TheGardeningTutor they have come back!!! thank you for your tips:)

Oh what a bummer. You can try cutting the stem down just past the injury and see how it does. It sounds as if it's the main stem and this plant may not recover but if you leave the injury that stem most likely will droop and die off. Try not to overwater it (wanting to give it love) because it sounds like there is not much plant there and pansies get rot easily. They can dry out a bit between waterings. Let us know how it goes DankHamsters! -mary

The Gardening Tutor Tysm! I’ll definitely keep you updated.

@@pharmacyman6415 You're so welcome. How refreshing to get a thank you! haha :)

The Gardening Tutor Hi again! Well your advice worked but since there was a lack of sun for a few days it got a mushy and sad, it’s really sad because it was such a pretty colour. (It was a dark burgundy and dark purple)

@@pharmacyman6415 I've been wondering about you and your pansy. Well...pooh. i hope it can make it until the sun can revive it! Thank you so much for letting me know. Fingers crossed. :)

Thank you and thank you for watching! -mary

Thank you for subscribing Sulli! Let us know how your pansies grow this year! Our pansy video was filmed in Zone 9 where we can grow pansies all winter. If you live where it snows, you will be planting and growing pansies in springtime. Once it gets to the heat of summer pansies can become stressed but sometimes (if they have enough protection from direct, hot sun) they can keep going. Immortelle is not a plant name I am familiar with but I think it is a Helichrysum, right? Good drainage and full sun is what most Helichrysum prefer. Thanks for commenting! -mary

The Gardening Tutor thank you for the reply :)it is also known as straw flower/ curry plant :)