Plant Pansies Now

By Phran Novelli

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - "Those pansies just look out of place this time of year,' my mom said as we drove past a display of reindeer with pansies at their feet - and she's right. Pansies don't really go with Christmas decorations, but it's a good idea to plant hardy pansies now anyway, because they'll bloom earlier in the spring and survive longer into summer.

By planting pansies now, while you can still get a trowel in the ground, you'll get to see pansies blooming on those sunny days in February just when you're wondering if spring will ever come. And when things really warm up in March and April and everyone's rushing out to buy annuals, the pots and plots you plant with pansies now will already be filled with those flapping happy faces.

Plus, fall planting helps give them time to grow much deeper roots, so while pansies planted in spring often wilt and die from the heat by June, fall-planted pansies often keep flowering well past the Fourth of July.