Plenty a’ Pretty Pansies

Blooming bulbs aside, it’s the pretty pansy that brightens our views in early April. 

Yes, often the first-planted blooms of spring, the pansy offers brilliance of color and sunny promise of warmer days to come. They are coming. 

While pansies may be started from seed, there’s no shame in buying ready-to-plant gorgeous blooms.

What’s to love about these brilliant beauties?

These popular pansy is a cool-weather annual that’s as versatile and it is attractive. 

Pansies:

• are sun-loving, but can thrive with part shade 
• are cool-weather loving, but can last in most hardiness zones up to (and through) August
• work well as complementary flowers in landscapes, planted between taller, focal-point blooms and plants
• are annuals, but deliver beauty for most of the year
• work as well in planters as in landscapes
• if deadheaded, can flower continuously
• prefer well-drained soil with compost mixture, but can live well in a variety of soils
• after setting roots, will round and mound, making them ideal for covering a large area, spacing about 6 inches apart at planting 
• grow to a height of 6 to 9 inches tall 
• offer a grand variety of bright colors—from yellows and oranges to purples, reds, whites and blues
• come in varieties from polar pansies (that tolerate cold weather extremely well) to heat-resistant cultivars (that can thrive in heat with moderate shade)
• should be planted when soil temperatures are between 45 and 65 degrees