purpleinopp said:Still picking bits of styrofoam out of the ground and am missing pansies so much. I didn't even bother going shopping for winter plants this year.
Hi Tiffany,
I feel bad for you that you are missing pansies. Perhaps you could start some of your own indoors under lights in a growing medium that meets your specifications. Most commercial growers do use a growing medium that contains either perlite or the styrofoam, but some growing mediums are available that don't contain either. The use of processed tree bark is becoming more common. Fafard is a brand that uses processed tree bark in some of their products.
http://fafard.com/products/
Some Walmarts carry some Fafard products during the gardening season. If you did take it on yourself to raise your own pansy plants, you would have a tremendously wide range of pansy seeds to pick from -- far more than you would have with commercial flats of pansy plants. I grow zinnias indoors during the Winter in addition to normal outdoor growing, and, although that does entail some effort on my part, I do enjoy the process itself. And I can get some zinnias that would never appear in flats for sale as plants. You might find added enjoyment in growing your own pansy plants from seed. This might be the year to try it. You can get some idea of the range of pansy seeds available from the Hazzard's listing of pansy seeds.
http://www.hazzardsgreenhouse....
Scroll all the way to the bottom of that long page and notice that you have several more pages of pansies to pick from. Hazzards is a commercial seed company, but they do sell to home gardeners as well. They have some things you can't find elsewhere. I purchased some white cactus zinnia seeds from them.
ZM (not associated with any product or vendor mentioned or linked)
