Pansies - cultivation and care, varieties of pansies

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Pansies - cultivation and care, varieties of pansies
Pansies - cultivation and care, varieties of pansies
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Pansies

Pansies
Pansies

With their spectacular shape, these flowers are very similar to violets. Most amateur gardeners grow this plant as a biennial crop. Pansies are particularly prized for their profuse blooms in early spring, when a carpet of velvet petals in a variety of whimsical hues delights the eye.

Signs and legends are associated with this flower among different peoples. Pansies were considered almost a love potion - one has only to sprinkle their juice on the eyelids of a sleeping person, and he will fall in love with the one he sees first after waking up. In France and Poland, these flowers are given before a long separation. The British declare their love by sending pansies to their chosen one.

For early and abundant flowering, this crop is planted in two terms, subsequently replacing with annuals. Flowers grow equally well in the northern and southern regions, they can be grown and bloom in two shifts - both in spring and autumn. Modern flower breeders have created exclusively decorative varieties and hybrids with exotic colors that differ from the traditional yellow and purple.

Which variety of pansies should I choose?

What variety of pansies to choose
What variety of pansies to choose

Professionals distinguish between 2 categories of varieties of this plant:

  • Large-flowered, having a large flower diameter - up to 10 cm;
  • Small-flowered, having many flowers of small diameter - up to 6 cm.

Usually amateur flower growers seek to acquire and grow large-flowered pansies. But from experience it turns out that the varieties with small flowers are the most robust and hardy. They tolerate the rainy season and temperature changes better. The abundance of small flowers on one plant gives no less striking effect than single large flowers.

In regions with a cold climate, it is preferable to grow varieties of pansies with small flowers, although we must pay tribute to large-flowered species, in the south they have recently been leading. This is not always justified, since in the southern regions, in hot weather, the inflorescences of large-flowered varieties become smaller. However, there is a risk of planting a small-flowered variety and getting a bush with tiny inflorescences from it by the end of the season. Given this feature of pansies, landscapers choose plants with large flowers to decorate urban flower beds. They also look more decorative in containers and hanging planters.

Pansy varieties

The name "pansies" means the garden variety of this plant, or Wittrock's violet. Its origin is based on such species as tricolor violet, Altai violet and yellow violet. Breeding work has made it possible to create many varieties and variety groups from this genetic material.

Small-flowered varieties

  • Snegurochka - variety with white flowers 3-4 cm in diameter;
  • Little Red Riding Hood - a variety with bright red flowers with a diameter of 3.5-4 cm;
  • Blue boy – variety with blue-blue flowers 3-4 cm in diameter.

Large-flowered varieties

Large-flowered varieties
Large-flowered varieties
  • Winter Sunshine - bush height 20 cm, variety with bright yellow flowers with velvety dark brown spots on the 3 lower petals. Flower diameter - 5 cm, stem length - 8-10 cm.
  • Ice King - a variety with white flowers with a greenish tinge, with purple spots on the 3 lower petals, on a long stem, 5 cm in diameter, bush height - 20 cm.
  • Heavenly Queen - a variety with a pure blue color of flowers with a diameter of 5 cm, with smooth edges, on a long stem up to 11 cm. The height of the bush is 20 cm.
  • Magic of March - a variety with dark purple, almost black flowers up to 5.5 cm in diameter with velvety petals, on a pedicel up to 11 cm.
  • Jupiter - a variety with purple-violet at the base and whitish on top petals, on short pedicels up to 8 cm.
  • Evening heat - a variety with brown-red flowers and wavy petal edges, up to 5.5 cm long, on a long pedicel up to 10 cm. Bush height - 10-15 cm.

Gigantic varieties

  • White - a variety with white flowers with a yellow-greenish tinge up to 7 cm in diameter, with wavy petal edges, on a long pedicel up to 10 cm.
  • Blue - a variety with purple-blue flowers, smooth edges of a flower up to 7 cm in diameter, on a long pedicel up to 11 cm. Bush height - 25 cm.
  • Golden-yellow - a variety with monophonic golden-yellow flowers up to 7 cm in diameter, on a pedicel up to 12 cm long. Bush height - 20 cm.

When to plant pansies?

When to plant pansies
When to plant pansies

After choosing the best, most decorative variety, you need to start planting seeds. For those who want to save time and energy, it is better to plant ready-made seedlings on a personal plot. But it is much more interesting to grow flowers yourself, watching them grow and develop.

To see blooming pansies in your garden in spring, seed germination should be started 2.5-3 months before planting seedlings in the ground, that is, even in winter. This flower has an increased resistance to low temperatures, so you can plan to plant seedlings in the ground 2-3 weeks before the likely date of the last frost. How to install it? Look into last year's weather archive, specify the date of the last frost, count from it 3 months ago and start germinating seeds on this day of the current year.

Late sprouting is the most common mistake of amateur growers. Pansies grow well in conditions of low air temperature. Germination of seeds is best done at a temperature of +18°C. A great danger to seedlings are flower pests - thrips. Therefore, the room where the bulbs of gladioli, most often infected with thrips, were stored, is unsuitable for the germination of pansy seeds.

Florists practice winter sowing of pansy seeds, it is carried out in July, right in the open ground. Seedlings appear in 1-2 weeks, they need to be covered from the scorching summer sun. You can plant the seeds in a greenhouse in January, where they are lightly sprinkled with soil. The optimum daytime temperature for the growth of seedlings is +16+18°C, at night +10+15°C, and moderate soil moisture. Summer seedlings are planted in a permanent place in the fall, winter seedlings in the spring.

How to plant pansies?

How to plant pansies
How to plant pansies

Seeds are laid out on the moistened surface of the prepared soil for flower seedlings, the crops are sprinkled with a thin layer of sand or vermiculite. For friendly germination of seeds, they need to be protected from the action of daylight.

A week later, the first shoots will appear, until this moment the soil in the seedling container is slightly moistened. It is best to water through the pan, and cover the box on top with a film to create the necessary humidity. The mini-greenhouse should be ventilated more often so that the plants do not die.

The container with seedlings is placed in a cool, well-lit place. It is better if it is a greenhouse on solar heating or a bed protected from the cold. The abundance of light and temperatures close to +13+16°C will not allow young plants to stretch.

Growing seeds at home requires fluorescent lighting and a cool location. Seedlings at the age of 30 days are transplanted into pots, which, at a temperature outside the window of at least + 5 ° C, are taken out into the open air.

Hardening of seedlings for better adaptation begins at the age of 10-11 weeks in protected ground conditions. During frosts, the bed is covered with straw or an additional layer of lutrasil.

Growing and caring for pansies

cultivation
cultivation

Flowering plants can be obtained in spring, summer and late autumn. To do this, pansies are propagated by planting them with seeds and cuttings from May to September-October. For flowering in early spring, plants are sown in the summer of the previous year. In the north-west of the country, at the latitude of Murmansk and St. Petersburg, sowing is carried out from mid to late July in open ground nurseries. This technique does not allow plants to bloom ahead of time, does not allow them to develop until the right time.

Early sowing at the end of May - at the beginning of June leads to the fact that the seedlings bloom before the start of winter, weaken, rot and die. Late sowing is fraught with the fact that pansies go to wintering weak and underdeveloped. Weak plants in spring cannot recover, recover after winter, do not bloom for a long time.

Although pansies are quite frost-resistant plants, a severe winter with little snow has a detrimental effect on them. Even worse for plants during early spring with thaws and night frosts. Most often, landings located in damp places with stagnation of melt water perish. In winter, snow retention should be carried out on beds with perennials.

When sowing in nurseries, flower seeds are sown not densely, seedlings appear in 1-2 weeks. They are watered, the aisles are loosened, they dive to the wintering place or to the garden bed at a distance of 20x20. With a belated pick, the plants remain elongated and weak.

After the plant has taken its permanent place in the decorative flower bed, the plantings are loosened and watered. Top dressing is carried out with superphosphate and ammonium nitrate at a dosage of 25-40 g/m2 Fresh manure is contraindicated for pansies. In order not to shrink varieties and hybrids with gigantic flowers on dry sandy soils, they are fed with organic matter (humus and compost) at a dosage of 5 kg/m2

The lighting of the plants is equally important, since in the shade they bloom not as brightly and profusely as in the sun. Flowers in well-lit plants are larger than in specimens grown in partial shade. In summer, pansies can be removed and replaced with flyers.

To obtain seeds, plants with the desired traits are transferred to the seed bed, watered regularly. To obtain pure plants, the mother specimens are isolated from each other to avoid cross-pollination. Seeds are harvested after the pods turn yellow, before they dry out and crack.

When maintaining pansies in an annual culture, they are sown in March in seedling containers. This is followed by picking in a greenhouse (April) and planting in the ground (May). In the summer of the same year, the plants will bloom, but the size of the flowers and the abundance of flowering will not be as pronounced as with winter sowing.

To make pansies bloom in autumn, they are sown in late April - early May. Flowering occurs in 55-70 days, depending on the characteristics of the variety.

Helpful tips from gardeners

Growing Tips
Growing Tips

If you leave the pansies, the seedlings of which were planted in July, to winter, you can count on autumn flowering and the appearance of flowers during the thaw, in early spring.

Plant care tips:

  • Carefully covering pansies for the winter will help keep them alive for several years. These plants, in fact, are perennials, as they are descended from field and forest violets. Modern cultivation of pansies traditionally prescribes to destroy them with the onset of the summer season, as withered annuals.
  • Pansies, planted in the middle lane from mid-August to the first decade of September, will bloom from late autumn until May next year with a break for wintering.
  • Winter varieties with traditional colors (purple, gold, yellow and white with spots) are better than modern red, pink and pastel varieties.
  • For a successful wintering, a high drained bed is selected with shelter from the cold wind. To adapt the roots before the onset of frost, plants are planted a month before a stable cold snap.
  • To get an exquisite spring flower bed, pansies are planted in autumn mixed with bulbs of daffodils and tulips.
  • In a winter with little snow, plants are deprived of their natural snow shelter, so they are covered with spruce branches of coniferous trees. Fallen leaves are not suitable for shelter as they are non-hygroscopic and may dent plants.
  • Inhabitants of the northern regions, in the absence of the necessary seedlings in the nursery, can start growing the variety they like in the middle of summer. Planting material will have to be stored in the cellar in the harsh winter.
  • An alternative to the previous method is to sow seeds in the fall in a cold greenhouse or in a sheltered garden bed, and in the spring to transplant flower seedlings into open ground. Autumn flowering will not be possible, but in early spring there will be full-fledged plants in the flower garden.

Sometimes pests appear on pansies - red mites that annoy plants during hot and dry weather. They are disposed of by applying a soapy insecticide solution for treatment.

Reproduction of pansies

reproduction
reproduction

To obtain a large amount of planting material that fully preserves the characteristics of the variety and hybrid, propagation by green cuttings in open ground is used. For this simple and effective method, green end shoots with 2-3 nodes are cut in 2-3 steps. The time of collection of cuttings is from May to July. For growing plants from cuttings, low beds are used, located in a humid, shaded place. The soil is compacted tightly, watered generously.

Cuttings are planted at a high density - up to 400 pcs. on m2, so that they are in contact with the leaves. Planting depth - 0.5 cm, be sure to spray the plantings. For moisturizing and better rooting, the cuttings are covered with paper, which is abundantly moistened.

Planting is watered daily, sprayed, weeds are weeded as necessary. Over 95% of cuttings with this care take root in 3-4 weeks. If the cuttings are carried out in May-June, then in the summer or autumn of the same year the plants bloom. Late cuttings produce plants that bloom next spring.

After rooting, the cuttings are transplanted into a flower garden or a garden bed for growing. If cuttings were carried out late (in August), young plants are not transplanted, leaving them in the same place. For the winter, they are covered with leaf litter, and the transplant is carried out in the spring.

One mother plant produces up to 10 cuttings at a time, 35-40 pieces per season. Cutting cuttings from the parent plant rejuvenates the hybrid, preventing overgrowth.

Possible problems when growing pansies

In addition to mites, pansies can be pests of scoops or aphids, which are effective against systemic drugs.

Major diseases:

  • Powdery mildew;
  • Black leg;
  • Root rot;
  • Stem rot;
  • Spotting.

Both diseases and pests rarely disturb the vegetation and abundant flowering of this unpretentious plant grown in flowerbeds and alpine slides, in hanging planters and balcony boxes.

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