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Pansy Power |
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Written by Rand Lee
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 Fall in Santa Fe is a second spring where pansies are concerned. Melted away — or simply struck dumb — by the shouting summer heat, members of the Viola family revive with the onset of cooler late August, September, and October weather. Often they will bloom till hard frost, particularly if deadheaded. Some plants may even self-sow, in which case you'll see their babies blooming next spring and early summer. Other pansies may overwinter, either staying evergreen or dying back to the roots, returning in March, April, May, and June more floriferous than ever.
 The word "pansy" comes from the French pensée, thought — particularly lovers' thoughts, according to some old European "language of flowers" traditions. Nowadays "pansy" is most often applied by Americans to the large-flowered violas; "violas" or "johnny-jump-ups" to the smaller-flowered sorts.
A number of wild species have contributed to the bloodlines of pansies. Viola tricolor, once known as heart's ease, is a short-lived, sprawling perennial to biennial that makes mostly basal clumps of heart-shaped leaves, from which rise stems of blue, white, and yellow three-colored flowers. A true perennial is Viola cornuta, the tufted pansy or horned violet from Spain and the Pyrenees. It bears oval, rather crinkled, alternating leaves on branching stems. Its flowers come in violet or white, with prominent, slender "spurs."
Together VV. tricolor and cornuta have contributed to the rise of Viola x wittrockiana, the cultivated pansy, which makes large, round-petaled blossoms, smooth-edged, wavy, or sometimes double, in every color of the rainbow. In some cultivars, the flowers are one solid color; these are called "selfs." "Blotched" pansies come in two colors: a near-black and a contrasting hue; these are the pansy "faces" many of us knew and loved as children. There are even cultivars which show three colors or more.
 Now is the time to plant your violas for fall, winter, and spring show. Pick a site that will give them some protection from the full force of the afternoon sun. Pansies like well-drained composty soil. If your soil is heavy clay, dig in plenty of compost — Paynes' Soil Conditioner is grand for this — making compost 1/3rd to 1/2 of the soil in the top foot of planting area. If your soil is very heavy, throw in crusher fines, fine gravel, pumice, coarse sand, or perlite, too, say 1 cup per square foot of planting area, dug in to the top 6 inches of dirt. You'll also need to add to the bed a slow-release organic-based fertilizer highish in phosphorus (the middle number on the fertilizer label), such as Yum-Yum Mix or Peace of Mind™ Fruit and Flower. Avoid high nitrogen fertilizers (nitrogen is the first number on the fertilizer label) like Miracle-Gro™. They'll stimulate a lot of weak green growth and few flowers. You can sprinkle fertilizer all over the bed and dig it in with your soil amendments, or add a heaping tablespoon per plant, mixing it thoroughly into the planting hole before you set  in the pansy.
— Copyright 2008 Rand B. Lee. Rand Lee is a garden writer and lecturer, former President & Founder of the North American Cottage Garden Society, and former Perennials Manager for Payne's North. You may contact him at Payne's South Marketing Department via telephone (505-988-9626) or email (
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
).
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