Little works of art will soon start to bloom ready for early spring in the garden. With abstract splashes of colour, these plants are none other than the popular pansy and viola, and the Horticultural Trades Association’s (HTA) Plant of the Month for March 2015.
These hardy, reliable plants have one of the widest colour ranges and can brighten up any garden space by being planted in beds, borders, containers and hanging baskets. In fact they are a great plant to back the Love the Plot you’ve Got campaign from the Garden Industry Marketing Board.
Recommended varieties include:Viola 'Aspasia', Viola cucullata, Viola 'Jackanapes' and Viola 'Moonlight'.
The common words ‘pansy’ and ‘violet’ are often used interchangeably. Plants considered to be pansies have four petals pointing upwards, and only one pointing down, while violets have three petals pointing up and two pointing down. Both can tolerate sun and cooler temperatures, and benefit from the removal of faded or dead flowers to prolong blooming and to encourage more flowers to grow.
When planting pansies and violas in the garden it’s worthwhile considering some contrasting companion plants like shrubs which can complement their mix of colour and lower height. Daphne bholua ‘Jacqueline Postil’, also known as Nepalese paper plant, is an evergreen medium-sized shrub with highly fragrant deep pink and white flowers that are followed by black berries. While, Euphorbia amygdaloides var. robbiae, also known as Mrs Robb's bonnet, is a spreading evergreen perennial with dark green leaves from which arise large rounded sprays of yellow-green flowers.
Broadcaster and gardener, Esther Rantzen CBE, the celebrity champion for the month has a great love for pansies and violas. She says, “I love pansies for their soft colours, all the shades of blues, purples and golds, and for their faces, turned down, as if in contemplation. As Ophelia said, ‘There’s pansies, that’s for thoughts’ – and indeed the name comes from the French, pensees. They look fragile, but in fact they are tough, they can survive anything except the burning summer heat, and they seed themselves and return, year after year. And outside the garden wall their little wild cousins, the violets, send out their fragrance to reassure us that spring is on its way”.
Nominated and agreed upon by British growers and retailers, the HTA’s Plant of the Month campaign highlights the plants that are widely available and looking especially good each month.
For more details, please visit www.the-hta.org.uk/plantofthemonth
