For years, I eagerly scooped up flats of velvety Disney-faced pansies as soon as they began to appear in garden centers in early March. Of course, by May they were gasping their last, sprawled over the scenery like the cast of Hamlet. Then, one October, I visited a friend in Scotland and discovered that pansies, low-growing members of the viola family (Viola wittrockiana), are perennial there. They love cool, damp weather, which is why they thrive in Britain and the Pacific Northwest.
"Out in Washington state and Oregon, I've seen bushel basket-sized pansy plants," says Cindy King, horticulturist at Kingstown Farm and Home Center in Chestertown.
While European gardeners have been plugging pansies into front-of-the-border holes in fall for years, most of us in the states have continued to use them as expendable spring annuals. Only recently have we realized that pansies and violas like cool, wet weather, which makes fall more suitable than spring. And if we plant in fall, they can often overwinter and come back better in spring so we get more bang for the gardening buck.
"When you plant them in the fall, they have time to set their roots and are bigger plants with more flowers when they bloom again in spring," says Annette Le Duc, horticulturist at Bachman's, floral and garden centers in Minneapolis that sell winter-hardy pansies and violets.
While all violas are already cool-weather lovers, breeders, ever eager to expand the options, have begun to develop more cold-hardy pansy strains. Often called winter pansies, they bloom beautifully into late fall and early winter as far north as Canada.
"My Icicle pansies were blooming on Christmas in Toronto," says Alison Fraser, plant consultant for Fernlea Flowers in Ontario.
Some like it snowy
The Icicle pansy series, introduced four years ago by Fernlea Flowers, comes in a variety of colors, and there are Icicle Violas whose newest colors are 'Majesty,' (butter with a russet top) and 'Sunset' (canary with purple accents). But while Icicles can take sub-zero temps and come back smiling, quadrupling in size the following spring in some areas, they do best in places with reliable snow cover. Snow acts as both insulation and protection from drying winter winds.
"Icicles need the snow cover to come back well," says Le Duc.
"Additionally, while Icicle pansies can take cold like polar bears, they faint at the first hot breath.
