Double Impatiens

Double Impatiens
Impatiens walleriana 'Fiesta Stardust Pink'
(im-PAY-shuns) (wall-er-ee-AH-nuh)

Sunpatiens

Sunpatiens
Impatiens 'Sunpatiens Spreading Salmon’
(im-PAY-shuns)
Synonyms: SAKIMP005

Here is a new and interesting plant. Hybridized from New Guinea Impatiens these flowers can take full sun. I must admit to doing something that I don’t normally do and that is buying plants without researching them. Gardening trends come and go all the time and I am usually loath to ride them. Later adaptation is okay because then the new thing has been proven. Resisting temptation at the nursery is something I really try to enforce.

Last week we got a large annual order that needed to be filled by this weekend. One of the items was two dozen New Guinea Impatiens for near a beautiful free form swimming pool. The nursery didn’t have any regular N.G.I.s we decided to change to Nonstop Begonias. Since the Sunpatiens were sitting there and they looked nice. One tray of six ended up on the truck. At the job I needed a few plants to under plant a large Hibiscus tree and these Sunpatiens looked great against the dark green Hibiscus foliage. This is where I lucked out as the ‘Spreading’ series of Sunpatiens is specifically for containers.

So for Sunpatiens there are three series each come with a good variety of colors. The Compact series is probably going to be the most viable in my opinion. Still getting up to 36 inches tall and quite wide having a slightly smaller habit is desirable to me. The Spreading series and Vigorous series look good for mass plantings. I used the extra couple of plants I had in the little perennial border by the driveway. I will report back later about their performance during the season.

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Indian Summer Black-eyed Susan
Rudbeckia hirta 'Indian Summer'
(rud-BEK-ee-a) (HER-tuh)

Here is the Sunday bonus flower. I don’t remember who told me that this plant isn’t perennial but they were dead wrong. These are from a group of plants going on its fourth year. To me it has done just what a perennials should do, increase in flowering and size a little bit each year. This flower does well in containers too. It seems to be one of the longer blooming Rudbeckias out there. It blooms all season.

Impatiens
Impatiens walleriana 'Dazzler Pink Swirl'
(im-PAY-shuns) (wall-er-ee-AH-nuh)

This is the variety of Impatiens we have decided to use for what we refer to as the “necklace”. It is a ring of color around a giant planting of Great Laurel (Rhododendron maximum) that is planted in front of the house in Greenwich. It takes 16 dozen 4 inch pots to make it all the way around. The Rhododendrons are for screening and got roughed up pretty bad by the snow. This year we fertilized them and removed all the broken branches and after they are done blooming (they are late flowering) we are going to prune the top three feet of the height to encourage some more bottom growth.

We haven’t used the ‘Dazzler’ series of Impatiens before but everything I have read about them is good. They are considered one of the most landscape friendly of the Impatiens. Last year all that was available was ‘Super Elfin’ and I fought hard not to use it since the plants can get pretty big in their area. We ended up using ‘Super Elfin’ and it was beautiful, a perfect ribbon of color. By far the best planting of the five years I have been doing it.

After a little disappointing result last year from the small cutting garden. I decided to double dig the area. We couldn’t do it in the traditional way as it is only really one strip wide on two sides of a flagstone walk. A funny thing happened when we started digging, there was concrete slab about 8 inches under the surface. Using a crowbar I was able to punch a few holes in the concrete for better drainage. After mixing some home made compost and topsoil together we filled the beds back up while adding some Osmocote fertilizer (it’s expensive but my favorite). We actually mixed in about 20% of the original lean soil. I have found that using all topsoil backfill is too much for some plants.

Peach Prism Impatiens

Peach Prism Impatiens
Impatiens walleriana Patchwork ‘Peach Prism’
(im-PAY-shuns) (wall-er-ee-AH-nuh)
Synonym: 'Large Eye Patchwork Peach Prism'

These exotic Impatiens are new to me and their color and habit is amazing. I took this picture at the nursery and it is from a hanging basket. The plant is a bit more like traditional Impatiens (than the other types of Fusion varieties) but you can tell it is different by the shading pattern and the large size of the flowers. We will definitely have to try a few of these in the garden. I just hope they aren’t all snagged by the time I get around to purchasing them.

One of the best things about my garden is some giant Lilac shrubs that were here when we moved in. They are about 10 feet tall and 8-10 feet wide. Right now they are in full bloom, which allows us to take armloads of flowers into the house, they don’t last too long but have been filling the house and front yard with a great smell. They seem to be Common Lilac types (Syringa vulgaris) but there is one white flowered type. I have been collecting the seedlings the last few years and have planting them in kind of a loose row to extend the row. My seedlings must be young, as only two have flowered.

Hawaiian Mini Impatiens

Hawaiian Mini Impatiens
Impatiens walleriana
Synonym: Busy Lizzy
(im-PAY-shuns) (wall-er-ee-AH-nuh)


This Mini Impatiens was growing inside a greenhouse and they looked great. I had never heard of them before but would like to try them in the garden. They probably won’t be available at my local garden centers and I don’t have the capacity to grow them from seed but I will be watching for them.

Impatiens are a godsend for the shade garden only requiring moisture to grow and flower all season. We have been taking some inside the last couple of years and they do okay inside the greenhouse. If they start to look a little ratty cutting them back and fertilizing seems to help out. The tops can also be rooted for new plants.

This photo was shot with Karen’s new 35-70mm/2.8 lens. It was bought used (not in production any more) in mint condition.

Variegated Impatiens

Variegated Impatiens
Impatiens walleriana ‘Peaches and Cream’
(im-PAY-shuns) (wall-er-ee-AH-nuh)

The color combination on this annual was stunning. It was spotted in the conservatory at Wave Hill Gardens in the Bronx. There are not a lot of references to this plant on the Internet. Only one site had plugs for sale and they described it as ‘heirloom’, ‘old’ and ‘hard to find’. ‘Peaches and Cream’ would certainly spice up any planting of Impatiens. In the past we have grown a lot of variegated Impatiens but they are always have white and green leaves.


Wow, it dropped down to 17 degrees (F) here last night, which has to be the coldest night this season. It should rebound nicely to the low 50’s but it is going to be difficult getting going in the garden this morning.

Last of the Impatiens

Impatiens
Impatiens walleriana
Synonym: Busy Lizzy
(im-PAY-shuns) (wall-er-ee-AH-nuh)

Glad to have gotten a picture of my hanging Impatiens flowers before they turned black in the freezing temperatures we have had at night. The growing season is really over now although a few flowers here and there seemed to hang on but have that funny look to them (like they came real close to freezing to death).

The Impatiens looked real nice hanging down a steep wall by the swimming pool. We just mixed the colors and it all worked out nicely. Definitely something I will consider doing again next year. Plans are already starting to whirl for next season and my general opinion is to try a few new things and capitalize on what worked in the past.


I must be on some sort of list at the P.C. Richards Theater in NYC as we again won tickets for the private Duffy show. It was really fun and she and her 14-person band sound great. I didn’t know Welsh women could be so hot! (:lol:). Had a great time and enjoyed the tracks from her new album, which is due out in a couple of weeks.

Miss Ruby Compact Butterfly Bush

Compact Butterfly Bush
Buddleja 'Miss Ruby'
(BUD-lee-uh)

This is another new (2007) Butterfly Bush with a compact habit. It doesn’t seem as dwarf as ‘Lo & Behold’ but it is a lot smaller then the species. Two things I found remarkable about ‘Miss Ruby’ were the flower color and the silvery foliage. The bright color of the flowers is nicely set off by the foliage. This plant was developed by Dr. Dennis Werner of the J.C. Raulston Arboretum in North Carolina.

‘Miss Ruby’ was certainly doing its job as it was covered in Butterflies. Our population of Butterflies seems really high this year much to the delight of my coworkers. They really get a chuckle out of seeing me trying to photograph them skipping from flower to flower.

See more flowers from all over the world at Today’s Flowers .

Since its Flowers from Today here is a bonus flower.


Exotic Impatiens
Impatiens hybrida ‘Fusion Infrared Apricot’
(im-PAY-shuns)

It seems really hard to get the Exotic Impatiens but they are well worth having. These flowers really glow in the shade. I wish the plants were more floriferous but they have been holding up well in the heat.

Variegated Double Impatiens

Variegated Double Impatiens
Impatiens walleriana 'Fiesta Ole Peppermint'
(im-PAY-shuns) (wall-er-ee-AH-nuh)
Synonyms: 'Balolepep'

This was part of the huge Impatiens planting we put in the front of someone’s house this year. It was kind of a rush job that was left to the last minute. Luckily I was able to score 30 dozen plants and put them in on time. The only type available was double flowered Impatiens so we mixed ‘Stardust Pink’, ‘Appleblossom’ and ‘Peppermint’. Unknown to me at the time was ‘Peppermint’s compact habit. We used the 5 dozen ‘Peppermint’ for two large semicircles surrounded by the other varieties so everything turned out nice. The planting has since has become a true carpet of color.

‘Peppermint’ is part of the Fiesta Ole series and grows 8 to 10 inches tall and has beautiful creamy white and green foliage. The flowers are shaped a little bit like roses and the plants themselves don’t seem to require any pinching, clean up or pruning.

Here is another flower that was blooming at work yesterday. Slugs had ravaged this Hibiscus this season (you can see the foliage). The Iron Phosphate slug repellent has worked and the plant is once again producing a lot of flowers. I am posting this tropical beauty since Karen and I just got a couple of tickets to visit my sister on Maui. October can’t come soon enough.

Congo Cockatoo

Congo Cockatoo
Impatiens niamniamensis
(im-PAY-shuns) (nee-um-nee-um-EN-sis)
Synonyms: Parrot Plant

This is certainly an unusual plant. My friend is growing this in his garden and while it is a tall and lanky plant it has been blooming all summer. I hadn’t seen it before so I decided to look up some information on the species.

Impatiens niamniamensis is a frost tender flower from East Africa. It easily grows to 3 feet tall and requires a lot of water and full shade. It also can be grown indoors for the winter but can get spider mite infestations. There is some color variation both in the age of the flower and among specimens. It is easy to grow from seed or cuttings.

Here are a couple of Daylilies that I spotted on my appointments yesterday. The first is one that we planted this year. It is called ‘North Port’ and out of the 15 or so varieties that we were able to get wholesale this season, this one was the best. The color combination is really nice. It grows kind of short which is also good. The second flower was an unusual dusty kind of orange and it was attractive but in a different way than the ‘North Port’. Each of the two farms we garden for have nice Daylily collections.



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Striped Double Impatiens

Striped Double Impatiens
Impatiens cv.
(im-PAY-shuns)

This flower caught my eye when at the nursery yesterday. I needed some pictures of the Tuberous Begonia colors since we are going to be doing a large planting of them this year. The customer is a little fussy about colors and I wanted to show her the available ones. As far as colors go I am not fussy, I like them all.

Double Impatiens are getting more popular and we have had good success with them in both bedding and container situations. This flower was just so bright and cheerful that it was hard to ignore. Hopefully they will have a few flats of these available when it comes time to plant annuals.

We also picked up some more Ranunculus and Pansies. Now the temperature is forecast to drop to 30 degrees (F) on Sunday night. That is at work, our home temperature is supposed to be 24 degrees! That stinks and I have a feeling that we will be replacing some flowers if it drops that cold. This has been one of the coldest March-Aprils I can remember. There is a 60 degree day forecast for the end of next week but I will believe that when I see it.

Not sure what flower this is but it was sitting on the bench next to the Bi-colored Impatiens. Some sort of Aster is my guess.


“April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain.”
T.S. Eliot 1888-1965

New Guinea Impatiens

New Guinea Impatiens
Impatiens x hybrida
(im-PAY-shuns)
Synonyms: Impatiens hawkeri

This picture is from work. The New Guineas did real well again. They were on drip irrigation and that seemed to be to their liking. I have been using Osmocote time released fertilizer when I plant annuals and it has been working great. Some annuals need another boost of fertilizer in the mid-season and for that I have been using Miracle-Gro liquid fertilizer. Sometimes that seems a little weak so I am going to have to put more Osmocote or try using a granular type for the second application.

New Guinea Impatiens were introduced to the market in the early 1970’s. Their wild success has spawned many new introductions since Longwood Gardens and the USDA collected the first plants. The original plants only vaguely resemble the large flowered and compact plants at the nursery today. One of the big differences between New Guinea Impatiens and the bedding type of Impatiens is the New Guinea type is grown from cuttings. Where the regular type of Impatiens is usually grown from seed. The New Guinea Impatiens are also a little more sun tolerant from my experience. I never plant them in full sun, however, that requires too much watering to keep them looking good all day.

These flowers do pretty well in the greenhouse and we usually take a couple indoors for the winter.

Exotic Fusion Impatiens ‘Brilliance’

Exotic Fusion Impatiens ‘Brilliance’
Impatiens hybrida ‘Brilliance’
(im-PAY-shuns) (hy-BRID-uh)

Yesterday we went down to the New York Botanical Garden. Amid the really flat gray skies and raindrops I was able to grab a couple of good pictures. The garden was in fine shape and not too crowded. The Daylily collection was just starting to bloom and the range of flowers was stunning. Truly heaven for a Daylily lover. There had to be at least 100 cultivars blooming. Daylilies are a difficult flower to photograph for me but I tried anyway.

These Impatiens have done well in the garden the last two years. There is a whole series of Fusion Impatiens now and this one is nice but I think the darker shades are a little more appealing. Hopefully soon the price will come down when more people start growing them and offering it for sale. Culture is the same as for regular Impatiens.

The new lens seemed to do pretty well yesterday. I was changing it between the 60mm in every garden I visited. The 24mm focuses well and has good color rendition. It is still going to take a little getting used to. The main thing is learning the minimum focusing distance. The weather is not cooperating for picture taking around here. I wanted to go out again today but it is drizzly and foggy with more showers and thunderstorms forecasted for today and tomorrow.

This is one of the Daylilies from the Daffodil and Daylily Walk at the NYBG. I have copied the planting of these two plants together several times on a smaller scale. The Daylilies help hide the dying Daffodil foliage. This cultivar is called ‘Hot Wire’ and I loved the orange, red and yellow shading. The flower size was good, also. Shot with the 60mm macro lens.

Variegated Double Impatiens 'Pink Ice'

Variegated Double Impatiens
Impatiens 'Pink Ice'
(im-PAY-shuns)

This is the Impatiens that I got the 40 flats of yesterday. It is all going to one house. I have never used the Variegated Impatiens on this large of a scale before so it going to be a bit of an adventure. In general I like variegated plants but some are too garish. This Impatiens is really tasteful and dainty so the variegation really works well. I did some other planting including some Japanese Iris ‘Sensation’ (Iris enstata), ‘Magnus’ Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea), ‘Becky’ Shasta Daisy (Chrysanthemum leucanthemum 'Becky'), Tioga Double Impatiens, Assorted Dahlia, ‘Profusion’ Zinnia and a 12 flats of Begonias.

As I was planting the Scarlet Begonias the Jerry Garcia song kept going through my head. When I got home I had to put the song on my Ipod. Since I hadn’t listened to the song in a long time the words were a little different than I remembered but it is still a great song.

Here are a couple of the verses:

“She had rings on her fingers and bells on her shoes,
She wore scarlet begonias tucked into her curls,
I knew right away she was not like other girls, other girls.

Well, I ain’t always right but I’ve never been wrong,
Seldom turns out the way it does in a song.
Once in a while you get shown the light
In the strangest of places if you look at it right.”
Words by Robert Hunter and Jerry Garcia

That is one thing I like about having an Ipod is my complete CD collection is at my fingertips. I didn’t have to rummage through all the discs (several hundred) to find the song I wanted to listen to. I just dialed it up. ‘Scarlet Begonias’ was followed by ‘Scarlet Fever’ by Kenny Rodgers and ‘Scatterbrained’ by Jeff Beck alphabetically. Talk about three different worlds.

Variegated foliage of 'Pink Ice'

I am working today at the small farm. I bought some perennials and have to finish the clean up and do some more corrective pruning. This week I have two more houses to open up and then I will have to start making some return visits to the houses that I have already been working on. This week is the last Sunday I am working for a couple of weeks. I feel like the photographic season is passing me by. Other than a couple of quick snaps at work or the nurseries I have been visiting I really haven’t had a lot of time to take pictures. In way that has been good since I have had to try and make those pictures count.

Orange Star Impatiens

Impatiens
Impatiens walleriana
Synonym: Busy Lizzy
(im-PAY-shuns) (wall-er-ee-AH-nuh)

This picture was a little lesson for me. I didn’t write down if this was ‘Accent Orange Star’ or ‘Mega Orange Star’. I think it was from the ‘Accent’ series since it didn’t get very tall and the flowers weren’t the two inches wide that the ‘Mega Orange Star’ gets. I always enjoy having some Impatiens in the garden. The colors they keep coming up with are amazing to me. One thing I don’t like is the ever-growing trend of making them shorter and shorter. I like them a little taller for some areas. One time I accidentally fertilized my Impatiens with a very high Nitrogen lawn fertilizer and they grew to about 4 feet tall. The downside was they hardly had a flower all summer.

Most people are familiar with using Impatiens in the shady areas of the garden. They don’t need deadheading but require regular water to look their best. I found that the Deer do like to eat them so try and use a protected location. Hummingbirds and butterflies are attracted to the flowers. I have been using them in containers a lot lately and that has worked out very nice. At the end of the season I often bring some into the greenhouse for a little color for the winter. I have noticed indoors they need some fertilizer and have to be pinched back to prevent legginess.

This Cactus was growing in the Conservatory at work and I thought that since the Impatiens flower had kind of a geometric pattern to it I would post this one along with it. It is a specimen of Mammilaria supertexta.

I have been waiting all day to post this and am finally using Karen’s DSL to do it. Apparently when the cable guy was fixing the cable on the pole in front of my house he fixed it so good that it doesn’t work anymore.

Double Impatients (Impatiens walleriana ‘Fiesta White’)

Double Impatients
Impatiens walleriana ‘Fiesta White’

I bought a couple of hanging baskets of this flower. It seems lovely so far. It has just a hint of pink inside the flowers. I have been seeing more and more Double Impatients. More and more varieties of Impatients in general, and as with most types there is a whole series of colors named ‘Fiesta’. While looking up this flower I found this site:
UGA trials
which was interesting to me as they provide performance data for a lot of different cultivars over the entire season. I figure if a plant can perform well in Georgia’s summer than it can certainly make in Connecticut’s.

Here is a link to the 2005 data on ‘Fiesta White’:

I didn’t get all the plants in yesterday all though I really tried so it is back to Westport on Monday. I have to pick up my Japanese Maple also. Today I was going to New York but I have a lot of paperwork to do. I allowed myself the luxury of sleeping to 6:30 and need to start the paper chase soon. I am going to the private garden in Greenwich as that is too good to miss.



This a shrub rose spray that I saw at the nursery.

Balfour's Touch Me Not
Impatiens balfourii
(im-PAY-shuns) (bal-FOR-ee-eye)

This nice flower was growing at Polly Hill. It was a virtual carpet of color in kind of a rough shady area of the Arboretum. It certainly caught my eye and when I asked about it the person working there wasn’t sure what it was. I left my question and my email address for someone to get back to me and sure enough they did. Isn’t that what a part of gardening is all about, an exercise in sharing? They said the flower looks a lot like Jewelweed and I guess it does but it is all that and so much more.

Common Jewelweed (Impatiens capensis) is kind of a pest in the garden but ever since I saw some Hummingbirds visiting it I always leave some small patches around the edge of the garden. I probably couldn’t get rid of it if I tried. It is the only wildflower I have seen Hummingbirds attracted to. This plant looks like it self-seeds very easily. It is a very attractive flower and the foliage is okay. In some circles this plant is probably considered a weed. I wish all weeds were this nice. Since it starts easily from seed I think I will try some next year.

There are about 880 species of Impatiens in the Balsaminaceae family. Many are cultivated in the garden.

New Guinea Impatiens
Impatiens x hybrida
(im-PAY-shuns)

For a while I got away from growing New Guinea Impatiens. I am not sure why as they are good performers and not too much trouble. The variations of flower and foliage colors seem infinite. I think with their performance this and last year I will start getting a few more. They are way tougher than the regular Impatiens. I looked to see if I could find out what variety this is. This one didn’t have a tag but the rest of them were from Paul Ecke’s Paradise series. From looking at their website the closest I could come up was ‘Pure Beauty Orange on Orange’. I remember when these started to get really popular and they were being sold as full sun Impatiens and that was wrong. They actually like to have some shade but can take much more sun than their counterparts.

There are about 1,000 species of Impatiens. The seed is disbursed through explosive dehiscence, which literally shoots the seed several yards away. That is why the common name is Touch-me-nots.