How Do Pansies Reproduce?

Commercially Produced Seeds

• Like most plants, pansies can be grown from seeds purchased in a store. Professional, commercial hybridizers study plants to determine which have the best colors, size and health and then mix and match those traits by pollinating them, either producing a recognized variety, as from a recipe, or a new and unique kind of pansy. Most commercially sold pansies are bred this way, whether they are sold as seeds or as plants.

Wildflower-Style Sowing

• Pansies likely evolved with the ability to spread like wildflowers; the plant produced its seeds and released them, and the seeds were carried by the wind or an animal to a new location. However, as pansies have been cultivated, human intervention has changed the seed sprouting process. Pansies need a gentler environment to sprout than most gardens offer.

Gardener Collected Seeds

• While J.I. Rodale, in "The Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening," encourages gardeners to collect pansy seeds for indoor sprouting, gardeners who do this must be flexible with the pansies that result. It takes seven to eight years to develop a "true strain" of a hybrid. A hybrid that is not a true strain will produce seeds that are genetically closer to one or another grandparent plant; rarely will seeds produce plants that resemble the one they were collected from.

Propagation Fom Cuttings

• Pansies reproduce easily when gardeners take cuttings from the stem. Cuttings should be taken by trimming a branch off the stem that includes at least two sets of leaves and removing the lower of the two sets. The stem is dipped into rooting hormone, and planted in soil. This produces a plant that is genetically identical to the parent plant, eliminating the risk of hybrid unreliability.

Root Division

• For most perennials, the most reliable method of reproduction is root division. Since pansies are sometimes classified as tender perennials rather than annuals, root division could produce new pansies, provided it was done in areas warm enough for the "tender" aspect, namely, the most southern parts of the United States. However, even when roots are not divided out, warm climate pansies often produce disappointing flowers after their first year; while this method of reproduction is possible, it may not be worthwhile for more than just the foliage.