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| Photo Credit: Gerald Klingaman |
| Traditional pansies, like the faced Majestic Giants, are favorites with many gardeners. |
Pansies are everywhere come spring, blooming in an array of colors from white to pink to orange – even black – and they’ve become the most popular winter bedding plant across most of the milder parts of the world. If planted in the fall (the preferred time), they begin blooming in November. Then come spring they shift into high gear and flower with reckless abandon until higher average temperatures turn them into fodder for the compost pile. Northern gardeners enjoy pansies as early spring bedding plants, with flowers produced into early summer.
These colorful annuals are one of our earliest garden flowers, being cultivated since at least the 16th century in England. Originally, the pansy flower was either single-colored in shades of yellow, blue or violet, or they had two petals of one color and three of another shade. And these blooms were small – less than an inch in diameter. My, how far they’ve come! | Add Photo to Journal |  | | Photo Credit: Gerald Klingaman | | A pansy-filled flower bed can create a bold, colorful statement. |
Today, modern pansies can be divided into three major groups:
- The traditional large-flowered pansies are complex hybrids with blooms in the 3-inch range and are usually marked with some type of face pattern. These faced pansies became the rage in England during the 19th century. (Pansy shows were held to judge the most perfect kinds, just as rose and orchids shows are held today.)
- The Johnny-jump-up group (also called the multiflora group) is based on Viola tricolor and has blooms in the 1-inch range. Faced or single-color forms are available. (These clones have better heat tolerance than the large-flowered pansies.)
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