Will my winter pansies ever flower?
Hi all,
I'm quite new to gardening so please bear with me. I bought a load of 'garden ready' pansies and wallflower from a well known Jersey based plants company, and planted them all in October / November last year. I bought them because of the advertised 'flowers all winter long', but I've not seen a single threat of a flower on any of the 100 + plants I planted. They all look relitivley healthy, but are showing no signs of flowering.
Does anyone have any advice on this, I'd like to know whether there's any point buying these types of garden ready plugs again, indeed pansies in general. I was dying for some winter colour but feel a bit ripped off! Should I leave them be, assuming they will flower eventually, or shall I put it down to experience?
Posts
The term winter-flowering pansies is a bit of a misnomer to be honest-they will come and go as the weather gets colder and then milder but still need to be at a certain size and temperature to flower-so yes they will flower and well before any spring pansies-probably in the next few weeks
Wallflowers around late March onwards
Thanks for the reply - maybe I was being a bit too literal?!
Maybe -but they will flower -when they do come back and say so please
They will come out en masse with the spring.
I find that the little violas and the viola x pansy 'Panolas' flower almost non-stop through the winter, in all but the harshest weather - then as soon as the snow melts they're smiling back at me again.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
good stuff, sounds promising - watch this space
My winter flowering pansies have been in bloom since November and are showing no signs of slowing down as yet.
I had the same problem as Dave, bought them from the same company, look healthy but not one flower until I looked at the weekend and yes now have three flowers in one basket and one in the other with several buds now showing, so hang on in there!
Winter, summer, spring pansies are all the same thing and will flower on and off all throughout the year tollerating hot and cold conditions quite well. The only really difference between them is when you plant them, ones planted in winter are going to be hardier than ones you plant in spring, but they should all survive. I'm sure the plants you brought will flower eventually, weather has been varying extremities and they may not have got off you the healthiest start. When they do start flowering deadhead them as soon as the flowers are slightly past their best this should encourage lots more flowers.
These are some of my violas bought as plug plants autumn 2011 in early March 2012. There hadn't been any flowers and we had quite a lot of snow mid February. Then the weather turned mild and they suddenly came out. By May the plants were 3 times the size.