Garden Country

Cultivating pansies of thought from seed is simple and satisfying, here’s how to grow the plants that from mid-March will give rise to a surprising flowering!

Curiosities About The Violets Of Thought

Pansies, also known as pansè, are annual or biennial flowering plants, able to bloom in late autumn, or in late winter/early spring, a period that goes from early March to June, giving exceptional flowers and blooms with bright colors.

The pansies are part of the Violaceae family, horns cultivated in different parts of the world, they are plants which reach, at the most, a height of 35 cm.

The plant has a short life, many consider it annual because the arrival of summer and warmer temperatures, will lead the plant to be unproductive, will tend to dry up and die.

Do you know that shortly before this period, the plants will produce many ovules full of seeds?

In this article, my intention is to point out how easy it is to produce the violets of thought yourself every year. Just get a sachet of seeds available in garden centers, online at various sites, Amazon or eBay, otherwise get them from the plants grown the previous year.

It is important to know that some plants of violets bought at the nursery, could be hybrids, so by collecting the seeds from these species of pansè, we could get plants and flowers different from those mothers. To start, we recommend buying a bag of seeds, so you can choose the species and color.

The photo shows the pansies of thought that I cultivated last year, sown at the end of August 2018, and transplanted at the end of November, with flowering in March 2019.

Sowing

The sowing of the pansè can be done in two periods: June if you want to get the first flowering in November, or recommended by me, the period from mid-August to early September, with a rich spring flowering already in March. In both cases the procedure is the same.

Sowing violets will be very easy, because it will take place in cold greenhouses. Why cold?

The answer is simple, unlike the winter greenhouses the pansè will not need various accessories for heating. So let’s proceed:

Let’s get a seedbed, which could also be a mini greenhouse, if it has heating just don’t connect it to the socket, or a do-it-yourself container.

What will be needed now, will be small pots (on the market are also biodegradable), a bag of peat (a type of soil recommended for sowing) and a nebulizer that will serve to water the seeds and then the sprouts.

We begin to pour the peat into a container and fill the jars that we have obtained previously. If we do not have small pots, you can opt to fill the container with earth.

Fill the pots with the chosen soil, wet the substrate with the sprayer and proceed with the sowing.

Spread the seeds carefully, for each pot we put from 3 to 4 seeds, so as to ensure at least one bud, not far from each other. Be careful not to put them attached.

Always make a few more pots than you need, not all seeds will give life to a new plant.

Let’s proceed with covering the seeds with a thin layer of earth, wetting the soil again with the nebulizer.

The pots are ready, what to do now?

Once you have completed the above procedure, you will need to cover the container we have chosen, if you do not have a lid, use the transparent film kitchen.

Make holes for airing.

Place the seedbed in a dark room, such as a cellar.

Now you just have to wait 4 to 5 days to see the first results; in the meantime continue to spray the surface of the ground every 2 days.

After this time we will notice the first shoots and the first two leaves. Let’s leave the seedbed still where it is for 3 days, then we could take it outside, without removing the lid, putting it in the shade during the day, covered at night.

In this way, we will slowly accustom the small plants to the light and to the new conditions, waiting for the late seeds. After 3 or 4 days, the small pots which have previously germinated, will be able to leave the greenhouse, initially always in the shade for some weeks, then, they will be able to gradually move to the morning sun.

Continue to water with a sprayer.

Then, eliminate any excess shoots.

The Transplant:

To transplant the violets we should wait a couple of months, a little more or less, which is the time needed for the development of the plant and a good root system. During this period, we will take care of the pots by watering them every time the soil dries.

How to Carry Out the Transplant?

After the development period, we will select the best plants. Those with more than 4/5 leaves and grown in an orderly manner, will be ready for transplanting. Let’s proceed:

Once we have chosen the place where to place the violets, we prepare a hole.

Let’s take the pots, bathe abundantly the soil in order to compact the soil, exert a slight pressure on the pot by letting the plant and the soil come out together.

Gently, without detaching the compact soil from the roots, we place the violet of thought in the hole we have prepared. Cover the hole by pressing the ground slightly with the palm of your hand.