A bit more pansy news. First, I want to reply to a few posts/questions here that I didn't see before. I'm in Massachusetts (north-central). The winters can be very cold, harsh and dry, and the summers get very hot and are often very humid.
The pansies I bought were available in the very early spring and are rather ubiquitous here during that time of year. The nursery person said that the pansies are the only flowering plant she would put outside while it was still so cold. I took her advice, potted them up and they did wonderfully. Beautiful flowers even though we were still having freezing temps and there was still snow on the ground!
I left them there on my front porch where they get full sun until the afternoon throughout the summer. That morning sun can be torturous during those summer months sometimes causing a substantial difference in temperature between the front and back "yards" of my home. As long as I watered them every morning to keep their roots cool, they did amazingly well. I also deadheaded them regularly but never cut them back. And I fed them regularly with Miracle Gro Bloom Booster flower food until mid fall.
After the first few frosts and the first heavy(ish) snow, I noticed that they were getting a bit leggy. But they still had flowers and a few blossoms. I took them inside last week and they were still showing new growth, but no new blossoms appeared. Today, I cut them back leaving as much of that new growth as possible (it looks like spring growth), watered them, and then placed them in a sheltered place on my back deck.
I should mention that the nursery person who sold them to me said that they're supposed to be annuals, but that she puts her's under her deck each winter and they come back in the spring.
I hope mine will come back (although they haven't yet gone anywhere). Is it the Miracle Gro that is making the difference? I don't know. But right now, they're all snuggled up to the base of my house, and the flowers I trimmed from them yesterday are in small glasses on my windowsill and giving me lots of pleasure.
I've read that using synthetic fertilizer will eventually kill the beneficial microbes that plants and ecosystems need to thrive so I won't be using any in my garden this coming year (just started vermicomposting so I won't need to....I hope....). But I don't mind using it in my potted plants that are on my cement porch as I feel that it won't do any harm, and will bring me and my neighbors a lot of pleasure.
I hope this might be helpful to someone! Wishing you all a wonderful week.
