Ms. Eudora’s Garden Tool Blog

For an extremely beautiful and colorful Fall Flower Garden try planting Pansies.  Pansies will give you a huge display of every color in a rainbow for your fall flower garden.  In some of the warmer regions in the south where the winters are considerably milder pansies have bloomed for as long as six months, from fall through winter and even late spring.  Pansies grow better in the fall because the night temperatures are much cooler; they can survive temperatures as low as 2 degrees in the winter.

Pansies come in a wide variety of colors, from pansies with faces to pansies of solid colors and grow too many different sizes making your garden intriguing eyesight to behold.  Pansies range in size from the smaller version called multifora, which has blooms of 1 ½ to 2 ½ inches in size to the larger sizes which can have blooms as large as 3 ½ to 4 ½ inches in size. The smaller variety can withstand heat and poorer soil conditions better than the larger flowering pansy.

If you choose to plant pansies, choose a location that has well drained soil and the plants will receive the full sun although they are know to fair very well in a partially shaded area.  Before planting work a minimum of 4 inches of garden compost, peat moss and or soil conditioners into the soil.  Pansies grow best in soil that has a low pH, so fertilize sparingly, they don’t need a lot.

When you begin planting, remember not to plant them to deep, plant them at least 6 to 8 inches in depth. Plant them about the height that they are growing in their plant packs or a little higher, you don’t want to cover their stems.  When you are done planting cover the surface beds with pine straw or wheat straw, (my personal preference is pine bark) then water thoroughly right after planting.  Keep check on your beds to make sure they are beginning to grow.  Something to remember, pansies will not grow well in soil that is always wet.

Once this fall garden has taken root and is well established and begins to bloom, just sit back and enjoy not only the beautiful fall colors of the trees but the beautiful fall colors of your garden.

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