Garden Studios

Most people only associate bedding plants with summer, particularly the white alyssum, blue lobelia and red salvia that traditionally characterised the big bedding displays of municipal parks.

But commonly bedding plants are only annuals – plants that, once sown, will germinate and flower then set seed and die multi function year – and really useful they’re too.

Of course, sometimes bedding plants are biennials, which just implies that their growing cycle takes two years rather than one, and simply to complicate things further, some perennials (plants that flower and grow for several years) are treated as annuals and replaced annually.

A prime example is the pansy, a tremendous plant if only because there are dozens of sorts, and essentially the most useful ones are the winter-flowering pansies.

These will cheer up a garden even at the dullest winter day, because they were specially bred to flower in very limited light.

You should buy them out of your local nursery or garden centre now because October is the correct time to plant them, while the soil remains warm enough for his or her roots to become well established.

Choose bright colours similar to creamy white, yellow and pink, because dark flowers don’t happen so well in winter, and plant them where you can find them out of your kitchen or lounge windows – so that you don’t should be within the garden to determine them.

Pansies are short-lived perennials, so if you happen to plant winter pansies they’re prone to keep on flowering all summer, especially in the event you deadhead them to encourage repeat flowering. They could even make it into next year.

And in the event you choose to plant your winter pansies in patio pots instead of within the ground, don’t forget that containers can dry out even in winter – so keep them watered if we hit another dry spell.