Brimming With Impatiens: Zesty New Varieties of a Garden Favorite

Impatiens.

They are perhaps the most loved, and hated, of flowers. Non-gardeners adore the No. 1 selling bedding plant because it is so easy to grow and always in bloom--so constant it seems extruded from plastic. Some serious gardeners wouldn’t plant one if their horticultural life depended on it because they’re so common.

But while the common impatiens are being praised or pilloried, growers have been busy developing and discovering new kinds. There are now double impatiens, miniature impatiens, yellow impatiens, and impatiens with variegated or bronzy foliage. Some of these newer kinds are even winning over the hardened horticulturist.

Impatiens are relative newcomers to the world of bedding plants, but from their near-obscurity before World War II, they have prospered and become the top-selling bedding plant in the nation, according to Charlie Nardozzi, senior horticulturist at the National Gardening Assn. in Burlington, Vt.

Their popularity really took off in the 1960s, when a strain called Elfin, developed in Costa Rica by Claude Hope, first appeared. This big improvement on the original African kinds, quaintly called “busy Lizzie” or snapweed, led to the abundance available today.

Although they have garnered the least press, the double impatiens, with flowers that look like little roses, are perhaps the most popular of the new kinds.

When a flower is called a double, that simply means it has more petals (or sepals) than normal. In the case of impatiens, there are so many petals, the flowers look like little roses.

“People actually think they are miniature roses,” said Janelle Wiley, the color specialist at Sherman Gardens, a public garden in Corona del Mar. “They don’t realize they are actually impatiens.”

Double Doses of Dazzle, Hardiness

In La Verne, avid gardener Sharon Lowe likes them so much that they are planted throughout her flower-packed garden, mixed together with other long-lasting blooms, in shady or semi-shady spots. She never plants the regular, single impatiens anymore.

“I only plant the doubles,” she said.

Though impatiens are most valued because they can grow in shade, the new doubles can stand more heat and dryness than regular impatiens. Doubles are even on Lowe’s select list of plants that do best in the summer heat. If they happen to get a few hours of direct, hot sun each day, then they’ll do just fine, thank you. But she warns against trying to plant them in the sun now; rather, one should wait for cooler weather).

Dawn Van Allen, with the Garden, a nursery in Pomona, thinks the doubles are sturdier, tougher plants for inland areas like Pomona than are ordinary impatiens.

“They can even be grown in a half day of full sun out here,” she said.

Van Allen likes to grow hers in hanging baskets, where they are at eye level. A hanging basket full of a Fiesta double impatiens named ‘Salsa Red’ looks more like a basket of begonias. The double flowers on a Fiesta named ‘Sparkler Rose’ mix hot pink with white to dazzling effect, though the dainty flowers of ‘Pink Ruffle’ may look most like miniature roses.

According to nursery manager Ron Vanderhoff at Roger’s Gardens in Newport Beach, the new Fiesta doubles are far superior to older doubles--they don’t get gangly, and the flowers fall off cleanly when they are finished rather than hanging on.

At Sherman Gardens, Wiley has ordinary white or lavender impatiens planted in some of the garden’s beds. But she puts the doubles in pots where they can be seen up close and don’t compete with the other impatiens.

“We like to keep them special,” she said.

Planting a few in pots, Wiley points out, also saves money, a good idea since the doubles can cost six times as much as ordinary impatiens. You can get a pack of six plain impatiens for $2.98, roughly the cost of a single 4-inch double.

All of the new kinds of impatiens are more expensive because they are grown as cuttings, rather than from seed, a process that is slower and costs more. Cutting-grown plants are sold in larger containers--most are available in nothing smaller than a 4-inch-wide quart pot--and sometimes they are sold in gallon nursery cans like they were a tree or shrub. Generally, they are not available in six-packs like ordinary impatiens.

A Color Wheel of Shade Choices

Yellow and soft-orange impatiens from a strain named Seashell were last year’s sensation. A bit of magic using genetic material from wild African species created these entirely new colors in cutting-grown impatiens.

But many gardeners were disappointed in the Seashells, so they may be hard to find this year. They thought that the yellow impatiens would be just like the regulars, except for the color. But the flowers on Seashells are smaller and cupped (hence the name), and they do not cover the plant, as some gardeners hoped, despite warnings from garden writers and the originator.

But a lot of serious gardeners had just the opposite reaction, liking them more than the regular impatiens. They approved of the more sophisticated look.

“They’re fast becoming my favorite,” Van Allen said. “I love them.”

The colors are more sultry than other impatiens, “more tropical,” Vanderhoff said, and they do look great growing with other semi-tropical plants like bananas and gingers, though they also look good with any other yellow-orange flower and go great with some shades of red.

Seashells grow well in pots or in the ground. They will survive winters in mild areas, though they look quite dormant in that season and come out of their winter doldrums later than regular or New Guinea impatiens. They also seem to need more fertilizing and can tolerate more sun than regular impatiens.

“Mine get three to four hours of direct sun in the middle of the day,” Van Allen said.

Also new on the scene are the variegated impatiens with cream or white-splashed leaves. They too can be frustratingly hard to find, showing up only sporadically at nurseries. The Summer Ice series not only has white and mint-green leaves, but also double flowers. This is definitely one that prefers shade over sun and looks best in pots--a garden bed full of these guys would be overwhelming, but planted in pots on the front porch, they’re just the right, light touch.

New Guinea impatiens also have foliage that is as striking as the flowers, most often a dark bronze or burgundy color. Van Allen likes to mix them in with other impatiens or begonias to provide some foliar variety, but the flowers are also bold and usually big.

“They are not subtle,” said Vanderhoff, who finds the colors delightfully tropical. The flowers do not usually cover the plant so the foliage is always visible, which gives the flowers some punch, seen against the dark leaves.

They have been erroneously called “sun impatiens” but need dappled shade.

“They’ll take sun if grown within four or five miles of the beach,” Vanderhoff said. Otherwise, keep them in bright shade. What they do like is warmth.

You can often spot them at nurseries, because their leaves and flowers are so much bigger than those of other varieties.

“They’ve always been larger than regular impatiens,” Vanderhoff said. Pizazz is one strain that can grow to about 18 inches tall with big 2-inch-wide flowers. Paradise is a squatter series that comes in 25 different sherbet colors. These plants are quite compact, growing 12 to 15 inches tall.

If you really want compact, however, search out the new miniature strain named Firefly. Topping out at only 6 inches tall, with half-inch flowers, these are small enough to grow between steppingstones on a shady path, or in a tiny pot on a patio table. These miniatures are grown just like ordinary impatiens and are available in several colors.

Now that impatiens come in every color but true blue, the temptation is to plant a little of everything, and they are often sold as a wild mix. But most experts suggest not planting many colors. One or two similar colors almost always look better. A good idea might be to mix in different kinds of plants to get a little variety and diversity (see the box on this page).

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Write to Robert Smaus, SoCal Living, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053; fax to (213) 237-4712; or e-mail robert.smaus@latimes.com.

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Other Than Impatiens

To break up those boring beds of plain impatiens, mix in other plants. To add interest and diversity, try:

* Grasslike, shade-loving plants such as dwarf or black mondo (Ophiopogon), some of the variegated liriopes, sedges (Carex) and dianella. Any of these will add tufts of year-round foliage color or grassy texture.

* Perennials grown for their foliage, such as the variegated or gray kinds of plectranthus, or Helichrysum ‘Limelight,’ which will weave lively chartreuse foliage into a shady tapestry. The new, ultra-low, ‘Olympic Gold’ bacopa (pictured above) looks great scrambling around impatiens.

* Foliage that also flowers, including the several maroon-leaved coral bells that make nice clumps for two or more years and the various low-growing lamiums that spread between other plants. .

* Other annual flowers that grow in shady spots include the blue-flowered browallia and the similar wishbone flowers (Torenia). Combine them with impatiens. Or plant something entirely different, such as bedding begonias--which are essentially interchangeable with impatiens and last as long--or the wildly colored mimulus.