Problems with impatiens in my flower bed.....

Hi Armywife -

I'm not sure in what part of the country you are, but iF you planted these the day after easter the weather may have gotten too cold at night and the buds may have frozen.

The forming flower and petal are very suceptible to cold weather and may have been damaged by near freezing temperatures.

If the leaves are still green and growning keep watering the plant and it should produce more buds in no time.

Impatiens grow really fast - you'll have new buds in no time!

Good luck! Itay.

Did you by chance plant these in full sun?  Impatients are more of a shade/partial sun type of flower.  Too much sun will make them wilt and die off.  Some of the newer types are more sun tolerant but even they can't take a full day of sun.

If they are still alive I would move them to a shadier spot....something that does not get direct afternoon sun.  They should bounce back pretty fast.

I hope this helps!

Jim

Hi again,

If your back yard has more shade that sounds like that would be a good move.  As for the marigolds take a look around as there are several different types and colors.  I have some that grow over 3' in height and have 3" blooms.

As far as transplanting the impatients you just need to gently dig down along the side to skirt around the roots.  If you break off some don't worry, although the more roots that are intact the more it will thrive.  I would start digging, by hand if you can, about 4 inches out from the base.  Just work down and towards the plant until you find the roots.  Impatients can take some abuse and still bounce back.  I have 4 children, 7 and under, and every year the impatients have balls bounced on them and such, branches break, but they keep on blooming.

I'm not sure but some types of impatients might act like perennials in your climate. 

Itay has a very good point about the cold weather.  My expeerience is that frost damage makes the leaves look almost like they melted and not just wilted.

You may all want to consider adding some mulch around your flowers.  It will help keep the roots moist and cool while keeping down the grass that is poking through.

For the pictures you need to have an image that is already uploaded to an online site like Flickr or a blog if you have one.  The prompts are:

Image URL  - this is the location of where you have the pic online.   Like http://www.yoursite.com/photo.jpg       

Image description - just a description you would use for the image.   Like "wilting impatients"   
Alignment - Where, relative to the text, do you want the image to be located in the post.  
Dimensions  - the width and height of the image in pixels
Border  -  if you want a border around the pic then enter a number here.  A "1" or "2" will place a thin border while a larger number will place a very thick border.
Vertical space  -  this is the vertical gap you have between the picture and surrounding text and images.
Horizontal space -  this is the horizontal gap you have between the picture and surrounding text and images.

Just so you know, you can always go back and edit these values if you want to.  Simply click the image and then click the "add image" button.

I hope this helps!

Jim

Impatients can't be in direct sunlight, they do better in shade or part sun. When you first plant them, make sure you water them.