Pansies and violas are cold tolerant plants and are one of the first flowers to bloom in the spring and will keep blooming until the heat of the summer. The pansy can be either annual or perennial, however, gardeners treat this plant as an annual because it prefers cool weather and gets too leggy in summers. There hasn’t been much success producing heat-tolerant pansies that can survive hot weather.

How To Plant And Care For Pansies

Planting

You can start pansy seeds indoors 6 to 8 weeks before you plan on transplanting them. Plant seeds in late winter for early spring and summer flowering, or plant seeds in the summer for winter flowering. Plant in moist, humus-rich, well-drained soil. Learn more about soil amendments and preparing soil for planting. Pansies like sun, but cooler temperatures. Space the plants about 7 to 12 inches apart. They will spread about 9 to 12 inches and grow to be about 6 to 9 inches tall.

Watering

Remember to water your pansies regularly. One of the most common reasons pansies fail is because they are not watered enough, so if your pansies are not doing well, try watering them more.

Propagation

Divide the rootball; from herbaceous stem cuttings; from seed, sow indoors before last frost or direct sow after last frost; by stooling or mound layering.

Pests And Diseases

Overall, pansies are very easy to grow and do not face any serious maladies or insect attacks Leaf Fungus Disease. Like all plants, they are subject to problems with fungus if they are kept too wet for extended periods of time. If fungal leaf disease develops, you may notice dark, brownish, semi-transparent spots on the leaves. If this problem affects bedding plants, you should pull up the affected plants and dispose of them.

Winter Pansies

Winter flowering pansies are bred to be more frost tolerant and to flower very early in the year. They are great in containers or flower beds. They do a great job for filling gaps and cheering up the place when flowers are scarce! Great companion plants for winter pansies are spring flowering bulbs. Particularly dwarf daffodils or tulips work very well with them.