Time for some colorful heartease.    Never heard of heartease?    You may know it by it’s more modern names – violet or pansy.

Why Heartease Now?

February is upon us and Phil the groundhog has warned of 6 more weeks of winter.*  February can be a dreary month, often cold and grey, with either rain or snow depending on where you live in the Southwest.    Time for some bright color to ease our hearts.

Good for us to have these flowers now – but is it good for the flowers to grow now?    In most of the Southwest the answer is a resounding YES!    USDA zones 7b and warmer can plant some pansies.    And as long as they are protected from freezing, you can enjoy them for several months until it becomes too hot for them.

Ease Your Heart

So here is the good news – February is the month most of us can easily grow one of the most heart-easing and cheerful flowers on the face of the earth – heartease. “Heartease” is one common name for Viola tricolor, best known as one of the mothers of the pansy. The simple beauty and delightfully friendly tricolored faces of heartease, pansies, and violets have long been admired by poets, artists, lovers, and cooks!    Yes cooks.    Heartease is edible.

For cool weather you can’t beat pansies and their kin.    And while plant breeders have bread for more cold tolerance, they have not been able to make pansies more heat tolerant.    So these plants are something to enjoy now, and they replace with a warm weather annuals later, as the days heat up.

How To Grow Heartease

Compact and low growing, pansies are ideal for edging and for squeezing in between rock walls and paths.    They are wonderful in containers, nicely complementing spring-flowering bulbs like daffodils.    Ideal because after the daffodils fade the pansies will bloom on.

The Five Elements of Growing

As with most of my growing tips in the last few years, I like to look at having these plants with the “Five Elements.” It is a way to boil down myriad plant care factors in our arid climate into manageable bite sized care tips.    (I am currently crafting a class on the topic.)

These four elements were once the way that people categorized our entire world.    The four elements are generally mentioned in this order: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water.    I’m going to address them in reverse order.

Water.

Water is wet.    Water is critical for the plant to be able to do photosynthesis and feed itself.

Heartease likes the soil to be moist but not wet.    Water every other day, or more often if they are drying out.

Fire

Fire is sunlight.    Do not confuse sunlight with temperature.    Yes, it can get 110F in full sun, but it can also be 110F in the shade.    Some plants can tolerate 110F in the shade but will turn into compost with 110F in the blasting rays and sharp photons of straight sunlight.

 

Heartease bloom best with six hours of winter sun, down to four hours of spring sun.    Grown in pots on a patio works well because you can move them further into the shaded part of the porch as summer approaches.    Or – in pots under a mesquite tree would work well too, because the mesquite will grow more leaves (gardeners call this a denser canopy) as the summer approaches, shading the heartease better.

Air

Air is a bit complicated.    Air is the overall air temperature – highs and lows.  Air also relates to the wind that blows.    A windy site will dry out (and kill) plants quicker than a quiet or still site – unless that is a low-lying still site where the overnight cold air settles.  Microclimates we call them – and that is an entire topic!

Heartease will do best in a site the does not freeze. They also do well in a still, unwindy site.

Earth

Earth is the soil, but also the minerals in the soil.    Thus fertilizer is one aspect of earth.

Heartease grow best in loose, rich soil with an acid pH around 6.0.    Since our Southwest soils tend to be alkaline (pH around 8.0), this again points to growing them in containers with potting soil.

You can lightly fertilize your pansies. Use a bloom fertilizer to prolong the flowering.

“Ether”

Modern culture and movies aside, the “Fifth Element” was once called Ether, or the spirit.

When applied to growing plants, the fifth element of spirit is your spirit.    Your nature of care.    Are you attentive and fussy, or do you just like to let plants “do their own thing,” and grow as they will?    I can only tell you about the four elements.    The fifth is up to you.    I can guide you somewhat, with notes like heartease is prone to overwatering.    That means if you fuss over it, and water it every day, it might just turn into compost before your very eyes.

Heartease & Wildlife

Remember I said the flowers are edible?    I wrote about using heartease as food for our foraging/homestead/food site, Savor the Southwest.

Wildlife know violets are edible too.    I have put my containers of pansies up on a table with metal legs so the critters can’t climb up and eat my plants. This also helps rise these charmers up to where I can easily see them and enjoy their beauty. Harvest them too, when I’m making a dinner salad.   

Unfortunately if you have many quail in your neighborhood, those fine feathered friends may find your pansies and enjoy a dinner salad themselves.

Gifting Pansies

For Valentine’s Day, consider a pot of these lovely flowers for your sweetheart.    If you live in a cooler part of the Southwest, they will grow inside for a month or two until you can plant them outside.    Just give them ample light and not too much water.

Thanks for Visiting Today

– Jacqueline

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