Want to know if your pansies will come back every year? Well, you have come to the right place, read on to find out.
Do Pansies Come Back Every Year?
Some will if they are perennial, a lot of pansies bought in shops are biennial and already in their second year so will not come back. A lot of people treat pansies as annuals.
Pansies are often short-lived perennial and will come back every year for 3-5 years. Some pansies are biennial and will grow for a year, flower in the second year and then die off.
So most pansies will come back every year which is why they are perennial. They are short-lived perennials which means you only get a few years out of them before they die off.
You are not going to have one plant live for 10 or 15 years like you can with some other perennials.
Used As Annuals
So while pansies may be perennial or biennial they are commonly used as bedding annuals. They will be planted for a splash of winter or spring colour before being replaced with something else.
This is commonly done because they are a cheap and easy-to-grow plant that can provide colour at a time of year when not much else is flowering.
Lots of gardeners remove them in the summer though as there is much more vibrant and interesting summer bedding you could be growing in its place.
Just remember if you are doing this yourself and growing biennial pansies you need to always have a rotation going where you have some in their first year of life and some going into their second if you want constant colour.
Growing Pansies From Seed
If I was to grow pansies from seed I would recommend growing perennial varieties rather than biennial, this just makes the planning of when they are going to flower a lot easier as they will flower in their first year.
For winter pansies you want to sow them in late summer or early autumn. Sow in a module tray and use multi-purpose compost.
Pansies germinate best in temperatures around 18-24 degrees celsius which is pretty typical for a UK summer and early autumn.
Grow them on and pot them into larger pots if they get a little large, they can then be planted out in late autumn or winter for a much-needed splash of colour.