Pansies could be the perfect wallflower — quiet, unassuming, blend-into-the-backdrop plants — of the garden.

Not for Brenna Estrada, though. She’s researched their history, grown and sold them professionally, and has come to love the wonderful contribution they offer to gardens and arrangements.

Her new book, “Pansies,” coming out March 11, is as much a tribute to the pansy as a personal plea for gardeners to take a closer look at them.

“There are few flowers as joyful as the pansy,” Estrada said. “They truly look like their faces are greeting you every time you see them. Most people don’t realize they come in some really breathtaking shades and patterns, they can be heavily ruffled, the stems can be trained to grow long enough for vases and handheld bouquets, and some varieties are also incredibly fragrant.”

Gardeners might also appreciate their contribution in the kitchen when grown without pesticides.

“They are entirely edible and even hold some nutritional value,” Estrada said. “I love using them in salads, sprinkling them on my soup and pasta, and they look lovely floating on a drink, and are especially great for baking.”

Estrada hadn’t planned to be a pansy promoter. She had served for five years on active duty in the Marine Corps and then 16 years as a 911 call taker and police dispatcher.

Working with pansies at Floret Flowers, a small flower farm and seed company in Washington’s fertile Skagit Valley, opened a new world to her.

Now, Estrada owns her own Washington state farm, Three Brothers Blooms — a nod to her sons— where she grows specialty pansies and violas for cut flowers, bouquets and arrangements, and draws the attention of growers and artists from all over the world.

Each year, she trials 100 different varieties of each in search of those with the most exceptional colors, fragrance and stem length, and she sells a select number of pansies as seeds. (Her next seed release will be April 21.)“There are countless varieties, in countless colors,” she said. “All shades of red, orange, yellow, blue, purple, pink, there are even shades of brown and black, and many have multiple shades on one flower.”

She finds their range of color exceptional.

“I think only bearded irises can match them, which happens to be my second favorite flower,” she said. “When cut with long stems, they do really well in vases, lasting well over a week when properly cared for. New buds will continue to open while in the vase. I also love that they bloom from early spring all the way into winter for me. They are certainly not to be underestimated.”

If a gardener wants to grow long-stemmed pansies, Estrada suggests choosing varieties that still possess the natural trailing habit of the viola and then train the stems to grow upwards.

“I do cover it thoroughly in the book as I want everyone to have a chance to experience how lovely it is to have a vase of pansies sitting on your table,” she said. “Viola ‘Arkwright Ruby’ is exceptionally easy to grow for long stems, and most of the Italian pansies do really well.”

Her absolute favorite flower is the black pansy, but she also loves the Pansy ‘Flamenco Terracotta’, Pansy ‘Chianti Mix’ and Viola ‘Tiger Eye Mix’.

The varieties of pansies grown as cut flowers more than 120 years ago “were nothing short of unbelievable,” said Estrada, noting that, in her book, she touches on the complex history of why the pansy fell out of favor as a cut flower.

She is confident that it’s time for that to change.

“The whole purpose in writing the book was to challenge and shift the current perception of the pansy as a small landscape flower good for only spring and fall,” she said.

She’s hopeful “that if people see photos of the pansies in shades they never imagined, filling vases, and growing in the full summer sun, that they might be willing to give them more attention,” she said. “More attention means that more efforts will go into hybridizing new varieties, which is exactly what we need.”

For Estrada, “there’s no flower like the pansy. I am confident if I can get people to see it for all it really is. They will love it just as much as I do.”

Show off

If you have a beautiful or interesting Marin garden or a newly designed Marin home, I’d love to know about it.

Please send an email describing either one (or both), what you love most about it and a photograph or two. I will post the best ones in upcoming columns. Your name will be published, and you must be over 18 years old and a Marin resident.

Don’t-miss event

Browse the 140 booths of vintage and antique dealers from jewelry to home decor at the French Market Marin from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Feb. 9 at the Armory parking lot at Civic Center and Armory drives in San Rafael. Admission and parking are free. Go to thefrenchmarketmarin.com.

PJ Bremier writes on home, garden, design and entertaining topics every Saturday. She may be contacted at P.O. Box 412, Kentfield 94914, or at pj@pjbremier.com.