I’m a little confused by something I was told by a person in the garden center of Lowes*. They had pansies on sale, and mine didn’t come up due to all the rain this spring and summer (I’ve never had luck with pansies, just the smaller violas and johnny jump ups), so I bought a bunch figuring that they’ll pretty up the end of the road for a few weeks. As I was checking out the garden center guy told me if I get them in the ground soon, they should come up next year.
But pansies are annuals, so… what did he mean? That these specific plants will come back, or that they’ll reseed and I might get some flowers from their offspring? We’re in zone 5 if that matters.
*I know, take what a garden person at a home improvement store says with a grain of salt, but I’m curious if there’s a real reason to expect there to be flowers next year.
They can survive some freezing temperatures. Extremely cold temperatures kill them. They won’t normally last in Wisconsin. I doubt they have much of a chance in New Hampshire.
They might be OK in zone 5, especially if they are somewhat protected – or if you bought the “polar pansies” that are supposed to be extremely cold hardy. My mom always planted pansies in the fall for spring bloom, but that was in zone 6.
What did you mean when you said your pansies didn’t “come up?” Did you mean, come up from seed?
I *think *what the garden center guy meant was that if your pansies get planted and can establish their roots while the weather is still mild, then they’ll be established enough to make it through whatever counts for a mild winter in your area and live to bloom one more time. If you do in fact get a mild winter.
The pansies with the big ol’ wide, flat faces almost never come back from seed. They’ve been so hybridized to get such big flowers. So go ahead and deadhead, and remove any seed pods that start developing, in order to extend bloom time and quantity. (Pansies respond really, really well to deadheading, and I respond really well to having something to do while on the phone on hold.)
Violas and johnnies have smaller flowers - they’ve been hybridized less - and sometimes get established enough to re-seed themselves.
Pansies are a lot tougher than their name would indicate. We noted some survivors after an Alaskan winter the past couple of years. It’s unusual, but not unheard of.
They may overwinter - a lot of people plant them in the fall around here (northern VA, so a bit milder than your NH).
I’ve got some Johnny-jump-ups that I planted in flowerpots on my front steps…3 or 4 years ago. Despite 100% neglect, several have come back year after year.
Oh, and not asked, but I was surprised when my Gerbera daisies (planted in the ground) turned out to be winter hardy!
I planted seeds indoors this spring, then moved them outside. Those that didn’t drown grew a few more leaves, but no buds.
God no, we don’t have mild winters here. The majority of January and February are spent several degrees below freezing (this year’s average temp in January was 14F, February 24F), and over the last two winters we got 11’ and then almost 9’ of snow.