How to Grow Pansies From Seed

Pansies are cool-season flowers, so the trick is to grow them when the weather is mild. For spring color, start seeds indoors 10 to 12 weeks before your last frost, then set the plants out a few weeks before that frost, since young pansies shrug off light freezes. For a fall and winter display, sow in mid to late summer. In hot-summer regions like Texas, Florida, and the Deep South, pansies are really a fall-through-spring flower and will fade once summer heat arrives; in the North and Pacific Northwest, spring and fall are their prime seasons.

Here is the detail most seed packets skip: pansy seeds need darkness to germinate, so unlike many flowers you should cover them. Sow about an eighth of an inch deep in trays or pots of moist seed-starting mix, then set the trays somewhere dark (some growers slip them into a bag) until they sprout, usually in 7 to 14 days at 65 to 75F. Once seedlings appear, move them into bright, cool light so they grow stocky rather than leggy. Transplant into rich, well-drained soil in full sun to part shade, spacing plants 6 to 8 inches apart.

Pansies are easygoing once established. Keep the soil evenly moist, watering at the base to keep the leaves dry, and feed lightly every few weeks for steady bloom. The single most useful habit is deadheading: pinch off faded flowers before they set seed and the plant pours its energy into more blooms instead. If plants stretch and go leggy in warm spells, shear them back by about a third to bring on a fresh, compact flush. A little mulch keeps the roots cool and helps them push later into the season.

Pansies mix happily with other cool-season flowers and pollinator plants. These heirloom, non-GMO companions look good beside them and help the whole bed thrive:

Pansies are grown for their flowers, and the blooms are edible, so pick them at their peak for the kitchen. Harvest fully open flowers in the cool of the morning, snapping or snipping them with a short stem. Use them fresh the same day as a garnish for salads, cakes, and drinks, or press and dry them for decorating. Picking often has a bonus: like deadheading, it keeps the plant flowering.

Pansies earn their keep as cool-season color for beds, borders, window boxes, and containers, filling the gap when little else is blooming. The flowers are edible, with a mild, faintly grassy flavor, and make a pretty garnish for salads, cakes, and iced drinks, or candied for desserts. They also press beautifully for cards and crafts. Because they are compact and frost-hardy, they are a favorite for dressing up entryway pots in early spring and fall.

• Leggy, stretched plants: usually heat or too little light. Grow in cool weather with plenty of sun and shear leggy stems back by a third.
• Stops blooming in summer: pansies pause in the heat. Keep them watered and shaded and they often revive when cool weather returns, or replant for fall.
• Aphids: rinse them off with a strong spray of water and invite in ladybugs by planting nearby flowers.
• Slugs and snails: they chew young pansies. Hand-pick in the evening or set out a simple trap.
• Deer and rabbits: both browse pansies, so use containers near the house or a repellent where pressure is heavy.