Needham in Bloom During Pansy Day

April 14, 2025
• A Needham spring is incomplete without pansies.

April showers bring May flowers, but in Needham, the flowers came early.

While slightly hampered by the rain and cold, Pansy Day brought colorful varieties of Needham’s town flower to local gardens and homes this weekend. Run by the Needham History Center and Museum, the annual sale — going for more than 40 years — funds the center’s programming.

Pansies signal the arrival of spring and remind residents of its place in Needham’s history — horticulturalist Denys Zirngiebel hybridized a wild viola to develop the Giant Swiss Pansy in Needham back in the late 1800s.

The history center’s Executive Director Gloria Greis called the pansy “a hometown invention,” and one many locals plant and appreciate.

“I think it is a local thing. I think Needham is pretty enthusiastic about it,” Greis said. “If you go to Volante’s, for example, or Needham Garden Center or any of the local places, Sudbury farms, Roche Bros., everybody is selling pansies. They’re so readily available in Needham.”

On Saturday, trays of flowers scattered the lawn outside the history center, divided by color and size. Customers shielded their faces from the rain, while organizers, huddled under a tent, stretched out their gloved hands to accept cash. One person remarked about the “lovely New England weather,” while another took a photo of frost dusting one of his flowers.

Kathy D’Addesio, who helps run the fundraiser, said “it’s all hands on deck.” The turnout delighted her.

“The people that are members and people who are so supportive of this history center, they come in the rain,” she said, “and so that is unbelievable.”

Their purple pansies sell quickly, and that’s what Barbara Harkins set her eye on when she arrived. Harkins, whose husband serves on the center’s board, said Pansy Day is an annual tradition in her household. She arrived early Saturday for her pick of the inventory.

Despite the bunnies, who can wreak havoc on gardens, pansies are hardy, Harkins said.

“They stay a long time, pansies, so that’s a nice feature of them,” she said. “Although I may just leave them in the pot. I’ve learned the hard way.”

Needham Garden Center and Hardware works with the history center to supply close to 1,200 jumbo pansies, including about 100 trays of three planters each, a few dozen hangers and other sizes. Becky Cook, who manages plants at the garden center, said the pansies come from Cavicchio Greenhouses in Sudbury.

She sees pansies as a “low maintenance, high satisfaction flower.”

“They are very cold-hardy plants, that’s why you see them always in the spring, and you’ll also see them in your December pots, because they’re able to withstand the dramatic change in temperatures that New England throws at all of us,” Cook said. “There’s not a lot of care. They always bloom. They always flower.”

Though paling in comparison to the real Giant Swiss Pansy, the history center’s jumbo pansy supply appeared bigger this year, D’Addesio said. Through the years, they’ve expanded their variety of planters in response to its popularity.

Their arrival early in the season is a welcome sight, Greis said.

“Winter is over. You’re so starved for something springy and bright, and they come in so many colors,” she said. “It’s almost like being in a candy store.”

Cook views pansies in the same way.

“It’s always pansies in the spring. It’s just like a quintessential sign, like a daffodil on the ground,” Cook said. “Once you see them, you’re like, ‘Yay, it’s here.’”

Dozens of locals picked up their plants, stopping to chat and strolling through the history center for a reprieve from the rain. Some families brought their kids, who helped select their favorites and load them in the car. The weather prevented the history center from selling out, so they hosted a second day for the fundraiser on Sunday.

Lisa Arm’s pansies occupied their own small space outside as their new owner went inside to pay. Arm went for the purple pansies, matching her purple puffer jacket.

Pansy Day, for her, is an intrinsically “Needham thing.”

“It’s a pretty big town, as far as population,” Arm said, “but this stuff makes it feel really small town.”

Marc Mandel, executive director of The Needham Channel, serves on the Needham History Center and Museum’s board of directors. He was not involved in the writing or editing of this story.