We are pretty proud of our pansy program and love the color they provide in the late winter and early spring. Our wet winters are challenging for pansies, making care for them difficult to get them to survive so we can enjoy this time of year. The wet weather breeds disease which is hard to control. However, we have developed a program that is very effective. This program includes two additional services to prevent disease. When we plant pansies, we add fresh potting soil which is sterile and keeps the soil surface less infected with disease. We then treat our pansies with fungicides every few weeks throughout the winter to combat the disease threat. There is no additional charge for these additional services as they are built into our fall pansy planting and the cost is all inclusive. As we have promoted, our program is intensive and may cost a little bit more but it is well worth it. We do what it takes to ensure our customers' pansies survive and thrive.
Although our annual addition of potting soil and fungicide treatment has been relatively effective, we are seeing increasing disease pressure the longer an area has been planted with pansies. The disease can build up over the years making the need to replace the entire soil in the planting area. We are now proposing that potting soil be removed every few years to start with fresh soil throughout the root zone instead of just the soil surface. This has proved to greatly reduce disease problems and the need for frequent fungicide treatments. You will likely see this proposed in the future.
Year after year we see other contractors' flowers struggle and barely bloom and sometimes die.
