Patiently Seeking

I finally got my magenta impatiens over the weekend for the shadier part of my garden and planted them this morning. For some reason, this year magenta ones have been harder to find with the nearly day-glo red ones and white ones dominating the garden centers. However, I’m finding that locally-owned garden centers are more likely to have what I’m looking for. Even this exotic plant from tropical Zanzibar! Impatiens don’t need much sun; keep them moist and they’ll bloom profusely when nearly everything else has given up for the summer. When I find the right color of coleus, I’ll add it for a colorful combination that lasts. As it turns out, the name impatiens, apparently does come from impatience because their seed pods will spring open with little prompting. http://landscaping.about.com/od/flowerseed/p/impatiens_plant.htm I like to leave a few spent flowers un-deadheaded so that I can have the fun of opening the little spring-loaded seed pods and watch the tiny seeds fly out to their new home in the soil—sometimes I don’t have to buy any new impatiens the following spring! With my last round of planting came a backache and stiff legs that didn’t loosen for two days so this time I brought out my folding art studio chair rather than my kneeling pad. Hopefully, I’ll survive this round better. I spent quite a bit of time gardening outdoors today. The rainy air felt good. The frogs and birds sang their pleasure and the plants basked in the humidity.