Happy Monday from the garden centre! I love pansies, particularly the frilly double ones, but if you’re looking to feed the bees, these hybridized beauties are not the very best flowers to choose for early pollinators as they have very little pollen.

Another interesting thing to digest about pansies: in France, field pansies (Viola arvensis) have apparently been exhibiting some new traits they’ve seemingly naturally evolved over the past three decades or so. Field pansies have more pollen than our cultivated hybrids, and they can reproduce using the help of pollen-transferring bees. Pansies can also self-pollinate when pollinators are scarce, however. And in the past 30 years, these field pansies in France have seemingly reacted to a dearth of pollinating insects by actually producing less pollen and forming smaller flowers. Researchers estimate that they have increased their rate of self-pollination to 25 percent. You can read more about the study here.