Yes, that’s me, driving slowly by the still desolate garden centers, peering out the window hoping for a glimpse of the first pansies and violas for sale. I have my routes, I make my rounds. On the way to and from work, I carefully choose a route that takes me past a small garden center
Sometimes I take a slight detour on the way home to go by a local grower’s place. She’s usually pretty good about putting a few flats of pansies and violas out front by mid-March or so. Sometimes I wonder if she bets on how quickly I’ll show up once those pansies are for sale.
And if those two places don’t have any pansies in a timely manner, gulp, I can always sneak in and out of a big box hardware store’s garden center and get some there. But I prefer not to, because they often just have those silly six packs of pansies and I need flats.
Flats of 48 pansies. Flats of 48 violas. At least a flat of each.
They have to be spring colors, too. No oranges, deep purples or golds. Those are for fall! I want pastels – soft pink, new white, buttery yellow, light purple, with maybe a dark purple or bright yellow for “pop”. Spring colors.
Once I get my flats of pansies and violas, I haul out some containers that I have just for those pansies and violas, plant them up and put them on my front porch. Then I plant more in my front window box. It’s an annual ritual, I always do it.
And though I’ll start cruising for pansies and violas this weekend, according to my garden journal I rarely get them before the 15th of the month.
But that doesn’t stop me from starting this little pansy ritual every year at about this same time….
I brake for pansies and violas.
Did you find any yet?
I do the pansy hunt every year – love their friendly cheerful faces standing up to the cold and frost.
Our pansies have been planted and growing since November…hope you find some early arrivals!
I just planted up some violas early Feb, and they are doing great. I remember as a child growing up in Wisconsin…we did a lot of annuals, and always had the front walkway choke full of pansies. Matti
"I brake for pansies and violas." That was a great way to end this post. Made me smile.
Dear Carol, I do understand the temptation and, of course, the impatience. Have fun and check what's behind before you brake!
My love affair with pansies goes back to 9 years old, when I picked great wads of blooms from Miss Annie and Miss Susie's pansy beds, not knowing I was doing them a favor to deadhead. Now I plant the smaller violas because they stand the heat and cold better.
Violas are planted here in November and again in late January or early February. I've noticed that 48-plant flats were replaced with 36-plant flats instead of raising the price. Sigh.
I hope you find them soon, in all the colors you want.
Nope, nothing here yet either. If it weren't for the patches of snow here and there on the ground, I could almost think it was spring.
That sounds like a lovely ritual-I love to see the exuberant spring displays in homes and apartments in temperate countries.
LOL at the thought of the garden center owner waiting for you to show up to buy a flat of pansies. Most of the garden centers around here don't open until the last week of March or the beginning of April, so I still have a wait for pansies.
I always buy pansies in the fall and plant them in the ground. I buy pansies in the spring to put in my containers. They are the best for Easter displays on the front porch.
I'm with Darla, our pansies have been brightening the garden since November. They're such sunny, cheerful blooms, I can't help but love them.
Pansies are winter flowers here. I look for bright colors in the fall so when I look out on a foggy winter's day there is something cheerful out there.
ummm-hmmmm love the pansies and violas can't wait for their arrival this year!
We've had our pansies in for a while now. This morning I even saw some geraniums. but it's much too early – they're forecasting snow again for tomorrow.
I'm on the same hunt – it's not spring till the pansies are in the stores. But alas, we must wait another couple of weeks to get them. Even thought the temperature says spring (50ish), the garden centres are just coming out of hibernation. Soon, soon.
I planted some winter pansies last fall and they are just peeking up through the edge of the snow!
I spotted some Pansies at both a Big Box retailer and at a Local Garden Center. Neither place had many but there they were. I thought of you.
I did resist the urge to buy them, though. I'm trying to hold off on starting up pots for another couple of weeks. I have some in the ground that survived the winter and actually have put out the first bud! Hopefully they'll bloom for Garden Bloggers Bloom Day next week!
I have some fond childhood memories of violets and pissabeds so it's only natural to love to grow viola and pansies.
I would like to know what perennials look best with pansies in the same bed.