New Guinea Impatiens

I finally found a shade plant that likes, well, shade. Imagine that! Haven’t had too much luck with a lot of the plants I’ve put in the ground but the impatiens seem to be doing really well.

Ahh — but here’s the rest of the story.  Back in March our doorbell rang and since we rarely get visitors, my husband and I both jumped (okay, that might be too strong a word — perhaps we eagerly walked) to the door to see who was there. Looking through the side window, we saw a young man with a piece of paper in his hand. We instinctively knew he was selling something.

But something about our neighborhood makes you want to open the front door. The people are friendly. Even our mailman has knocked on our door and given us his life story. But I digress.

I opened the front door and the young man was smiling. He introduced himself and told us he attended a Catholic military school and was selling plants for their fundraiser. I recently bought some plant seeds from a niece that didn’t grow so I was skeptical but we purchased some anyway as we would be purchasing plants not seeds.

I asked the young man to come in and he was very polite and answered all the questions we had about the fundraiser and included information about himself also. So it was that we bought two (2) large new guinea plants from this young man. We also bought 24 smaller ones to plant in our yard.

In May the plants were delivered and boy were they healthy and large!

They have survived through three (3) major rainstorms and love the shade. Because of the deer in the area, I have sprayed them with deer repellant to make sure they last the summer.

So — besides hostas and ferns, I can safely say that the new guinea impatiens will also grow in total shade. Although the label sometimes says plants will grow in sun/part shade, I have found it to not always be the case.

Slowly but surely I’m getting some color in my yard.

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