Success With Pansies in Winter Landscapes

How are your pansies doing? Large numbers of were planted in area landscapes last fall and given proper care, they can produce masses of color well into next spring.

The most important, and sometimes overlooked maintenance practices include supplemental fertilization and deadheading. When fertilizing pansies during the cool season it is important to use the right product. As the temperature cools and the soil temperature drops below 60 degrees F., begin a liquid feed program using a fertilizer containing at least 50 percent of its nitrogen in a nitrate form. A standard 15-2-20 pansy formula fertilizer has provided excellent results when applied at two week intervals through mid-March.

Soil temperatures begin to warm up by mid-March and fertilizers containing ammoniacal nitrogen can be used. The standard fertility program that is used for summer annuals works well during the remainder of the growing season. You can use a standard 20-20-20 liquid, slow release or granular product.

Deadheading involves the removal of spent blossoms, and is the key to long term heavy flowering. This should be done every 6 to 8 weeks. In small beds the job can be done by hand, and in larger beds pruning shears or hedge clippers might be required.

While deadheading, be sure to remove any old, or freeze damaged flowers as well as long, extra vigorous branches. This encourages the development of more compact, productive growth.

Obviously, pansy bed maintenance includes the removal of debris and dead leaves. Cool season weeds often begin appearing by February and should also be pulled from beds before they become large and competitive.

Note: Thanks to the University of Georgia for the information on pansies. For more in-depth information via the web, go to: http://www.ces.uga.edu/Agriculture/horticulture/pansies.html

Question of the week: Is it just me, or are there more acorns than normal this year? If so – why?

Answer: I agree. The acorn crop seems to be higher than in most years. My answer as to why, is based on conjecture, with some science imbedded.

Acorn production is generally cyclic. A heavy crop is usually followed the next year by a light crop. This is believed to be due to the great amount of energy that is expended during heavy production. The following year the tree bears fewer acorns, while recovering and building up food reserves.

There is a built-in survival characteristic that oaks and many other trees have that makes for a more interesting explanation. Trees seem to produce their most abundant yields of fruit when under a degree of stress, and in some cases – just before they die.

This observation has been made in many different places and at many different times. Stress evidently causes physiological or chemical changes within the tree that triggers more fruit set. This is probably nature’s way of reproducing the species.

My guess is that the past growing season was, according to the cycle of production, going be a heavy acorn year anyway. This, combined with an excessively dry growing season resulted in the abundance of acorns that we are seeing.