I first tried them in the shade of some palms in the garden, but they croaked. Then I thought they might prefer to be in the house, just beside a window and a door. I am in the tropics and humidity is high, so I thought they would be all right as long as there is no direct sun. I take care not to overwater. Still they refuse to play ball.

I am contemplating giving up altogether on them. Of course I keep saying this each time I bid another one farewell, but when I see them at a garden centre my resolve crumbles.

Please can someone advise? At present I have 2 that are slowly drooping...

Prospero

I had no idea there are 200 impatiens native to Asia! Now you have spurred me to try and locate at least some of these. For inspiration, could you let me know some of their names?

the wallerina one i grow in hanging basket in the shade under my mango tree...and they grow yr round. The balsamica will def grow in singapore - they are so super heat hardy. You scatter the seeds and they grow like anything. Mine are growing in full sun. The new guionea hybrids, like what derick said, here in bangkok they are sold during our cool season. however up north they grow yr round as the weather is cooler there. Currently my new guinea ones are grown in the soil with morning sun (during this season the sun is quite strong as there are no clouds to block it - we have no more rains) and they grow just leaves, However during the rainy season they flower. And yes, the soil cannot be heavy soggy clay. Should have some sand incorporated into it.

Would love to find out how you do....I am also interested in growing impateints...and if anyone else in the true tropics are growing impatients..would love to hear from you!!

Now if only I can find the other types of impatiens....

I've seen New Guinea impatiens growing well in Singapore in private gardens under relatively cool, semi-shaded conditions and observed it there for more than a year. There did not appear to have much care given to the plant.

Did your NG impatiens show new leaves which are small and wrinkled, and refuse to bloom? If they did its probably cyclamen mite infestations. They are very common in plants bought from nurseries. My late NGI were murdered by these mites. I have stopped buying plants which are very susceptible to these pests.

1. Make sure that the weather has thoroughly warmed before you put them out.

2. New Guinea Impatiens WILL NOT do well in shade. I'm not sure why others are saying they will but they're wrong. The regular impatiens will tolerate very little sun but the New Guinea needs it. I raise them where they get about 4 hours per day of sunlight and they do well. I don't know if they'd like more sun or not but I do know that they don't like full shade.

2. Give them plenty of water. They can't stand in mud but the soil should be kept moist.

Like Prospero, I had a collection of New Guinea Impatiens that I had put in hanging baskets on our mostly shaded deck die off catastrophically over a period of two or three weeks. We were living in the St. Louis area at the time. They were growing and blooming nicely, just like they were in the greenhouse where we bought them. I fed them occasionally with a little dilute Miracle-Gro for Tomatoes, which seemed to work fine for several months. I watered them with captured rainwater to avoid city chlorine/fluorine. They also got quite a bit of natural rainfall.

They went so fast from growing and blooming luxuriantly to wilting and dying suddenly that it seemed to me that they must have caught some virulent fatal virus. Other plants on the deck were unaffected, so I disposed of the dead and dying New Guinea Impatiens as if they were a bio-hazard to the rest of our plants. I disposed of the plants and the containers in which they were growing.

In retrospect, considering what others have said here about growing them in a well drained medium, the problem may have been the hanging basket growing containers. They were filled with the kind of sphagnum moss that is usually put in hanging baskets. That stuff is very water retentive -- the opposite of sand -- and it may have "drowned" their roots. Or maybe they did die of some sort of disease. Or could the urea content in the Miracle-Gro in a sterile growing medium have been the culprit? I recently heard that urea is inappropriate for soilless growing media and inappropriate for foliar feeding, although I find both things somewhat hard to believe.

Is perlite useable instead of sand to create a well-drained growing mix for New Guinea Impatiens?

-- Burton --

Hope this helps, Chris

however, this NGI is freaking out. she was left outside during our first mini heat wave here in fairfield county, ct, and at first seemeed to be enjoying the heat and sunlight. then i put her in a shaded (for about half the day) part of our porch. i finally brought her in abot 1 week ago. at first, it was strange....she bloomed all the suddden with each move, at least new buds....then after a day or two, all the buds fried as did some of the leaves. each time i moved her, she seemed to revive; right now she is in a portion of my sun porch, whereshe gets about 4 hrs orf filterede sunlight a day, acutally probably a bit jmore.

it is quite sad, as each day now she seems to be losing a cluster or a few of leaves; is there anything i can do to save her? it has been a helluva a hot and humid summer bere in lower CT/NYC. any suggestions are so welocmed

please email me at: amelia68_2000@yahoo.com if you wish!!! thanks!!!

I was so excited when I moved to Cancun in the Hotel Zone to grow these. They are beautiful plants in the nursery. I have now killed 3, even during the winter. I have tried full shade and 4 hours a day sun. I have even tried indoors since I thought it may be the salt air. The plants do not grow, and the leaves start turning brown and drying up almost immediately. I have not transplanted the last 2. They have good drainage. The last one I did not fertilize at all.

Any suggestions? This is my favorite flowering plant and I want to grow it.

By the way, I did find the correct link to the reference above. It was no help to me but may help others.