Impatiens (Impatiens walleriana)

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Impatiens

Habit (mature) · Famartin / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0

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Impatiens

Impatiens walleriana

The "busy lizzy" — by Missouri Botanical Garden's account "the most popular annual bedding plant in the U.S. today," prized for non-stop flowering in shade where most annuals sulk. A succulent-stemmed tender perennial from East Africa (Tanzania, Mozambique), it is grown as an annual everywhere but USDA zones 10-11, mounding 6-24 inches tall and covering itself with showy, slender-spurred, five-petaled flowers in pink, rose, red, lilac, purple, orange, white, and bicolors from June to frost. Worth knowing before you plant a whole bed: the species is susceptible to impatiens downy mildew (Plasmopara obducens), which can collapse a planting.

Review: Source-backed

Climate fit: narrow (23/100)

Filler

Border

Container

Light

Part shade

Water

Consistent moisture

Mature size

6-24" tall · 12" apart

Lifecycle

True annual (one season)

Summer heat range

Mild-Hot

mild to hot summers Interim Plotwright tier until the plant AHS range is authored.

Native in Illinois

Missouri Botanical Garden PlantFinder lists Impatiens walleriana for USDA hardiness zones 10 to 11, height and spread 0.50 to 2.00 feet, sun "Part shade to full shade," water "Medium," bloom "June to frost," and tolerance of "Heavy Shade"; it is grown as an annual ("Suggested Use: Annual") in all colder zones.

Climate notes

Cold hardiness

Now

Zone 6b

USDA

Chicago, IL · 1991-2020 average annual coldest day

Source: USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023 (1991-2020 climatology) via ArcGIS FeatureServer

Won't grow here

2050

Zone 7b

Plotwright

Your zone + climate-model shift · SSP3-7.0 (regional rivalry)