Pansy · Gilgit, Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan
When to sow pansies in Gilgit
Main outdoor window
2 May - 6 Jun
The window this page is built around.
Timed from last spring frost
30 May
In Gilgit, on your chosen risk.
Ready to pick
31 Jul - 30 Aug
If you plant at the start of the window.
The average last frost. Half of all years are later than this.
Step by step in Gilgit
Each window is a range, not a single day. Earlier in the range buys you a longer season; later in it buys you a safer one.
Start indoors
7 Mar - 11 Apr
Twelve weeks before your last frost, under cover or on a windowsill.
Plant out
2 May - 6 Jun
Four weeks before your last frost.
In flower
31 Jul - 30 Aug
Pansies through the year
Against the frost risk in Gilgit
Why these dates
Start indoors twelve weeks before the last frost and plant out four weeks before it - pansies want cool soil and stop flowering in summer heat. For winter and early spring flowers, sow in midsummer and plant out in early autumn, six weeks before the first frost, so the roots establish before the cold.
Hardy to about -15C and flowers whenever the temperature rises above about 4C, which is why it blooms in midwinter in zone 8. Dies out in summer heat above roughly 30C rather than in the cold.
Seed packets and extension guides express timing as weeks either side of the last spring frost, because that is the only reference point that travels. Pansies are timed from 12 weeks before that frost for an indoor start, with planting out 4 weeks before it, and this page simply resolves those offsets against the frost date computed for Gilgit.
Hardiness is not the obstacle here. Gilgit is zone 5b, comfortably inside the range this crop is rated for, so an established plant should come through an average winter without protection.
The median frost-free season here is 118 days, against 90 to 120 days to first flower for this crop counted from planting out. That margin is what decides whether a late sowing is worth attempting.
Also in Gilgit
Other flowers to time
Growing pansies in Gilgit
When should I plant pansies in Gilgit?
Aim for 2 May - 6 Jun in an average year. If you would rather not gamble on the weather, wait until 16 May - 20 Jun - by then frost has finished in nine years out of ten.
When will pansies be ready to harvest in Gilgit?
Expect to start picking around 31 Jul - 30 Aug, based on 90 to 120 days to maturity from the planting date calculated for this location.
How much frost will pansies tolerate?
Hardy to about -15C and flowers whenever the temperature rises above about 4C, which is why it blooms in midwinter in zone 8. Dies out in summer heat above roughly 30C rather than in the cold.