Planting Fall Pansies
There's a chill in the air around my home. Although it's just starting to be September, the shorter days and cooler nights make this great weather for cool season crops. One crop that thrives in fall in my neck of the woods are pansies. Garden centers are stocking up on them and they make a great plant for a container or in the garden. Here's some ideas for growing pansies this fall around your house.
Pansies in Containers
Many container plantings can use a make over this time of year. I'm pulling out the leggy and spent marigolds, petunias, and lobelia and I'm going to plant a pot of pansies. Whether it be the large-faced hybrids or the small faced violas, this family of flowers will bloom right through a frost. I mix and match colors in a container to present a bright and cheery pot for the front of the house.
Pansies in the Garden
In annual flower beds or even herb gardens, pansies make a great addition to prolong the color season. Pansy and violas flowers are edible, so they are perfectly appropriate for an herb garden. Mix them in with basil, parsley, and sage. As the weather cools they will thrive in the space left from the dying basil and be good visual companions to the parsley and sage.
Pansies Through the Winter
Pansies and violas can take a light frost and still grow. In fact, most years, tough violas, such as Johnny-Jump-Ups, will overwinter under the snow and be blooming in early spring. If you want to encourage them, mulch with bark mulch in late fall to protect the plants and remove it in March or April for the first flowers of the season.
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