Impatiens, beautiful and long-lasting blooming

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Bursting colours, and ripe seed capsules that burst open explosively at the slightest touch — that is impatiens (Impatiens walleriana), best known for decorating flower beds, garden boxes and pots for many months in a row. Give them shade or part shade and humus-rich soil, and 8 to 10 plants to the square yard create amazing ground cover.

You can thus decorate your flower beds, garden boxes and pots for many months in a row.

Planting impatiens

The planting of impatiens purchased in nursery pots is performed in spring.

• Prefer shade or part shade.
• One variety, Impatiens hawkeri or New Guinea impatiens tolerates sun.
• The soil must contain a lot of humus.
• Plant at least 8 to 10 specimens to a square yard (1 m²) to create amazing ground cover.

Mix your earth with flower plant soil mix and water generously to make the flower-bearing abundant.

For impatiens purchased as seeds, you can sow directly in the plot from April onwards but be careful in case of frost spells to protect your seedlings.

• If you want to plant impatiens in the sun, select sunpatiens.

Caring for and pruning impatiens

Impatiens care is child’s play and no pruning is actually required.

• Water regularly in case of heat wave.
• Adding flower plant fertilizer will enhance the blooming but you’ll still have flowers if you don’t fertilize.

Nonetheless, in pots or garden boxes, you can amplify the aesthetic appeal and stimulate budding of new flowers if you remove wilted flowers regularly.

• Pinch out the growing tips of young impatiens plants to encourage side shoots, giving a bushy, densely flowered mound instead of a few tall stems bare at the base.
• If stems grow leggy and flower only at their tips, cut them back by about a third; impatiens break readily from lower buds and soon flower again.
• Pots and garden boxes dry out faster than open ground, so push a finger an inch or two into the compost and water when it feels dry at that depth, since impatiens wilt dramatically when thirsty.
• Impatiens stem cuttings root easily in a simple glass of water, an easy way to multiply plants for free and keep young ones indoors where winters are cold.

All there is to know about the impatiens

Being very ornamental thanks to its bursting colors, this perennial or annual blooms remarkably in flower beds and garden boxes.

Care is elementary and growth is quick.

Don’t be surprised if your Impatiens don’t grow back from one year to the next because they fear the cold.

They’ll survive winter only where winters are mild.

• You might however try growing them in pots to bring them inside your house during the coldest months.
• If this is the case, reduce the watering to only once a month during the winter dormant phase.

If holes appear on the leaves, be on the lookout for slugs because they love impatiens and you must act fast.

Disease and enemy of impatiens

• Watch for impatiens downy mildew, which shows as yellowing, cupped leaves with a fine white felt on their undersides and ends with the flowers and leaves dropping to leave bare stems.
• Plants struck by downy mildew cannot be cured, so pull them up with their roots and bin them rather than composting, and grow something other than impatiens in that spot afterwards.
• Red spider mites thrive in hot, dry air, so raising ambient humidity may help, though misting offers only brief relief; inspect leaf undersides regularly for fine webbing and pale stippling.
• Water impatiens at the base rather than over the leaves, and clear away fallen flowers and dead foliage, because moisture trapped in crowded growth invites grey mould on stems and blooms.

Impatiens troubles: what to look for and what to do

Impatiens are rarely troubled, but three culprits account for nearly all the damage. Use the signs on the plant to tell them apart before acting.

Apart from these, impatiens are generally not so vulnerable to diseases and parasites.

Smart tip about impatiens

During the blooming, feel free to water regularly but not too much to keep just the right moisture level.