Pansy Mania Days begin this Friday, September 20.

September 18, 2024

Hello, again!

Ugh, our days are getting shorter! With sunrise now about 7:15 am, I’m not waking up as early because the first light is getting later every day. I guess that’s ok, as our bodies maybe need a bit more rest for natural recovery. While I prefer longer days, many of our flowering plants actually need differing lengths of sunlight to flower. ‘Photoperiodism’ is the response to changes in daylength that enables plants to adapt to seasonal changes in their environment. The best example of photoperiodism in plants is flowering, but other responses to daylength changes include bud dormancy and bulb or tuber initiation. My thought too is that with the shortening daylength our trees and shrubs start their dormancy period as well.

As horticulturists, we can manipulate the flowering time of plants by artificially making the length of daylight they receive different from the normal day length. A plant that requires a long period of darkness is termed a ‘short-day’ (or ‘long-night’) plant. Short-day plants form flowers only when day length is less than about 12 hours. Many spring- and fall-flowering plants are short-day plants, including chrysanthemums, poinsettias and Christmas cactus. If these are exposed to more than 12 hours of light per day, bloom formation does not occur. Other plants require only a short night to flower. These are termed ‘long-day’ plants. These bloom only when they receive more than 12 hours of light. Many of our summer-blooming flowers and garden vegetables are long-day plants, such as asters, coneflowers, California poppies, lettuce, spinach and potatoes. These all bloom when the days are long, during our summers.

The garden mums that we’ve grown for decades are short-day plants. We grow them in our normal day length for the best possible blooming period. Ours are just now beginning to flower naturally. But with other crops we are growing, such as celosia, we give them short days by covering the plants in the late afternoon, tricking them to bloom earlier than they normally would. This gives you a flowering plant now, not weeks later.

Our first fall pansy crop that we’ve just delivered from our production facility looks great and loves the cooler night temperatures we are receiving. I hope you’ll stop by and pick some up. Our fall ornamental cabbage and kale are also excellent cold tolerant annuals for the garden and patio containers. With different leaf textures and shapes, they make great contrasting plants for fall arrangements.

I like to incorporate ferti-lome Premium Bedding Plant Food into the soil at planting time. It’s a quality bedding plant food with micronutrients and slow-release, water insoluble nitrogen to aid in healthy plant growth. Its advanced coating technology with polymer- and sulfur-coated urea provides gradual, consistent nutrients for up to 30 days!

There’s a lot happening at the garden center, including a couple of things I want to highlight:

Be sure to stop by and pick up your fresh roasted Hatch green chile; we are finishing up the season as our chile inventory is getting low. Pick some up, divide them into small Ziplock bags and freeze for use all year long. Now until the supplies are gone, the half and full bushels are 50% off!!

Don’t forget that Pansy Mania starts this Friday the 20th and runs through the 29th. Grab the Mania Money that you’ve been accumulating for weeks and spend it on something fun!

If you’re planting grass seed this fall, sign up here for our free how-to Lawn Overseeding Seminars. Remaining dates are Sept. 28 and October 5th.

Our upcoming guided Fall Potted Planter Workshops are Sept. 21 @ 10 am & 2pm and Sept. 22 @ 1pm. Sign up here if your patio needs a fall refresh.

See you at the garden center soon!

Your friend in the garden,

Marty Johnson

Owner - Johnson's Garden Centers

Pansy Mania Days