March 31, 2006 © Janet Davis
Come early April, the first plants to hit
the garden centres are pansies and violas.
Extremely cold-tolerant, they’re able to withstand those last frosts of
spring while giving us a nice hit of colour for the 6-8 weeks before summer 
annuals can be
safely planted out.
The common name for pansy comes from the French word pensée, meaning “thought” or “remembrance”. In Hamlet, Shakespeare’s Ophelia says: “There’s pansies, that’s for thoughts.” My own memory of pansies is that of a small child in my mother’s first garden in Victoria, B.C., where fall-planted pansies stay in bloom throughout the winter. I even recall kneeling so I could bury my little nose in the velvety blossoms of the big, old-fashioned varieties with their delicate perfume.
Garden pansies are biennials or short-lived perennials and complex hybrids of as many as six European species, including Johnny-jump-up (Viola tricolor). Their botanical name is Viola x wittrockiana, the “x” indicating their hybrid nature and the species name honouring Veit Brecher-Wittrock, a Swedish botany professor and author of Viola Studies, an 1897 book on the history of pansy and viola hybridization. Violas, sometimes called “mini-pansies”, are selections of horned violet (Viola cornuta).
Although the
hundreds of pansy and viola varieties seem bewildering, there are actually just
a few powerhouse seed breeders. Japan’s
Sakata Seeds has given us the large-flowered Majestic Giants and the Maxim
series with their lovely, dark-blotched blossoms. One of the best, ‘Maxim Marina’, above left, is a fabulous
light-purple. Another favorite Sakata introduction
is the award-winning ‘Ultima Morpho’, a lavender-and-yellow pansy with dark
whisker lines that was named after the rare Blue Morpho butterfly of Costa
Rica. In the late 1980s, Germany’s
Benary Seeds came up with an unusual
combination of dark purple and bright orange for their ‘Jolly Joker’
pansy -- interesting, though challenging to use in colour schemes. Goldsmith Seeds of California has the Penny
series while Ball Seeds produces the lovely Sorbet violas with their delicate
colours and mouth-watering names like ‘Sorbet Blueberry Cream’.
There’s now a new type of plant called
panola that is half-pansy and half-viola.
Developed by Waller Genetics of California, panolas 
combine the early,
compact, free-flowering nature of violas with the larger flowers of
pansies. Last year, I grew Panola
‘Violet Picotee’ and ‘Rose Picotee’ and was very impressed that the plants did
not grow leggy, even as temperatures warmed.
.
When shopping for pansies and violas, don’t automatically choose the ones with the biggest flowers. Instead, select well-budded, compact plants that will suffer less on transplanting and begin growing vigorously right away. If I find that my seedlings are root-bound and need to be pried out of the cell-pack, I’ll score the roots lightly with a paring knife to encourage them to branch out.
Pansies and violas like humus-rich soil that stays consistently moist. When planting seedlings, water them in well but don’t fertilize them right away; wait for a week or so until they’re established. Deadhead the plants religiously to stop them from going to seed and keep new flowers coming. Bouquets are a lovely way to do that, and since pansies and violas are edible, salads are too. I love pressing pansies and when they’ve dried, waxing them onto candles or gluing them onto notecards.
When watering, avoid splashing the flowers and foliage, which can cause mildew. Pansies and violas are heavy feeders and appreciate regular fertilizing with a soluble plant food. Once warm weather hits in late May-early June, it’s time to retire them to the compost and plant summer-blooming annuals instead.
Pansies and violas look lovely grown as a groundcover among spring-flowering bulbs or mixed with forget-me-nots and early spring perennials like lungwort (Pulmonaria) and hellebore.
Adapted from a column that appeared in the National Post