If you want a real pansy display next spring, don’t depend on the basketfuls you’ll find at the hardware dealers. Instead, grow your own from seed or buy young plants from a specialist this fall.
The advantage to you is simply this: you can pick the colors you need to harmonize with your spring garden and have a great, colorful array most economically.
New seed—which is important—is available from growers in August. It germinates quickly and comes true to type.
Planting New Pansy Seed
Plant the seed in a well-prepared seedbed approximately 1/8-inch deep – no more. Keep the seed moist at all times and shade the seedbed and seedlings from the hot midday sun.
By September and October, you will have a multitude of tiny plants to transplant to the border. But if your order is not well-drained, space them 4” to 6” inches apart in a nursery bed where the earth is built up 6 inches above the surrounding ground. Keep them watered.
As pansies like cold weather, they will keep growing until the ground freezes. After it freezes, protect the beds with a mulch of sail hay or other coarse material that will not pack down around the young plants.
In early spring, as soon as the ground can be worked, lift the young plants and set them in the border.
44659 by Na