Viola & Pansy Festival Favourites 2026
Posted: 16 Apr 2026In March this year, we celebrated our 23rd Viola & Pansy Festival.
We have held the Viola and Pansy Festival every March since 2004. It is the largest independent variety trial of these plants held in the world, with seed of new varieties supplied by plant breeders from around the world. We have had seeds from USA, UK, Holland, German, Japan and more!
We are pleased to say that this years festival has been very successful.
The votes are incredibly helpful to our plant breeders as they will know which varieties perform well during growing and then catch the public's eye in the garden centre. These votes can potentially decide which varieties get sold commercially! All the plants at the festival are either new, experimental or improved varieties. Each variety is a product of a process that can take about 7 years from discovering the variety testing and building up stock. The vast majority never make it to garden centre benches.
The Top 10 festival favourites were:
| Type | Series | Variety | |
| 1st | Viola | Bel Viso | Soft Pink |
| 2nd | Viola | Corina | Violet Flare |
| 3rd | Viola | Floral Power | Tricolor |
| 4th | Viola | Sorbet | Tiger Eye |
| 5th | Viola | Deltini | Honeybee |
| 6th | Viola | Admire | Blue |
| 7th | Pansy | Frizzle Sizzle | Blue |
| 8th | Viola | Sorbet | Orchid Rose Beacon |
| 9th | Viola | Floral Power | Blue Picotee |
| 10th | Viola | Admire | Deep Purple Face |
From left to right: 1st Place Viola Bel Viso Soft Pink, 2nd Place Corina Violet Flare and 3rd Place Floral Power Tricolor
These results will be published in the gardening and trade press.
Come along to our Viola & Pansy Festival 2027.
