Pansies

Please can you tell me when to buy pansies for the summer?

 

The garden centers and shops are full of them now, so now is good, they are hardy and will flower forever if you trim off the dead flowers regularly.

Mrs Chopper

 

Every corner shop has pansies on sale now . Just planted mine over the last 2 weeks which gives me some colour until the middle of May. I have never tried to keep them going over a full season . There is a lovely trailing viola "Friolina" which does last all summer - I must get some this year

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=fr...CJOw8QP90uSZDQ&ved=0CI4BELAE&biw=1152&bih=709

 

I still have some winter pansies flowering that arrived to me as plug plants around September/October time.

 

I've lost about half of th pansies I have had along the front of the house to blight this year - Im not sure where it came from since it seems to have hit half of the plants from one source & half from another, with compost from the same batch. Very strange.

 

From my hanging baskets last year I had loads of seedlings dropped into beds and pots.
I pricked out a couple of dozen and potted them on.
Several of my baskets this year have these seedlings planted up. They are very similar to the baskets where the Pansies were bought.