Impatiens are no-fuss plants, but it pays to know how to revive dying impatiens when problems do develop. When wilting and other start issues occur, taking preventive measures and learning the most common issues that affect impatiens can help save your dying plants.
Here’s a quick guide on how to revive dying impatiens based on the symptoms that develop:
Nematodes: Stunted Plants, Yellow Leaves, and/or Root Lesions
Nematodes or roundworms sometimes attack impatiens. It’s hard to spot nematodes because they’re tiny and usually buried deep within the soil. These worms have pierce-sucking mouths that can affect your impatiens, causing them to get sickly, stunted, and wilted. You’ll start to notice that the leaves will turn yellow and the roots won’t grow properly.
The effects of nematodes are more noticeable in hot weather. It’s twice as hard for nematode-affected plants to recover from the midday heat and start to wilt when evening comes. Remove severely infected impatiens, along with the soil around the roots. You can repel nematode attacks by fertilising your plants with fish emulsion mixed with water and pour it on the soil.
Excessive Heat Dryness: No Flowers and/or Wilting
Too much heat can cause your plants to wilt and stop blooming. Be sure to keep watering so they’ll bloom again when the temperature drops. It also helps to use organic mulch to keep the soil cooler and encourages the flowers to bloom.
Wilting can also be a sign that your plants experience too much sun. If this is the case, water your plants well. One can transplant younger plants to a location with more shade.
Bacterial Wilt: Rotting Stems at the Soil Line and Sudden Wilting
Bacterial diseases can cause rotting stems and sudden wilting. As a result, your impatiens plants will die and collapse. A yellowish substance (the bacteria) will ooze out of the stems if you cut them.
Remove the infected plants from the roots along with garden debris. Disinfect the tools that you use in a solution with hot water and bleach or spray disinfectant spray on them. Don’t plant your impatiens with other plants vulnerable to bacterial wilts, such as eggplants, potatoes, and tomatoes.
Overfeeding: Excessive Leaves and Fewer Blooms
You don’t need to fertilise impatiens regularly. Still, when you do overfeed them and give them too much nitrogen in a single feeding, your impatiens will focus all their energy on producing leaves. Concentrate on creating leaves gives them less energy to produce more flowers. The tender foliage is more susceptible to aphid infestation and other harmful insects. If you’re going to feed your impatiens, use a slow-acting, granular fertiliser instead.
Tarnished Plant Bug: Dwarfed or Deformed Flowers
A tarnished plant bug is a green or brown coloured insect that sucks younger impatiens’ lives, resulting in deformed or dwarfed blooms. These bugs are about a quarter-inch big with yellow, brown, and black marks. You’ll usually find yellow triangles with black tips on the sides. Tarnished plant bugs typically appear early in the spring season, and they’ll multiply when summer ends.
If you can spot them early, you can handpick them and place them in a jar of soapy water. For major tarnished plant bug infestations, use pyrethrin/pyrethrum insecticides and spray them early in the morning because the bugs are less active during the day. Be sure to clean your British garden during the autumn and spring season to keep these bugs from overwintering.
Why You Should Grow Your Impatiens in a Semi-Pro Greenhouse
There are several advantages to growing your impatiens in a semi-pro greenhouse, such as:
Protecting your plants from pests
Aphids, tarnished plant bugs, and other harmful pests may feed on the leaves and flowers of your plants. Keeping your impatiens inside a semi-pro polytunnel lowers the risk of infestation, as well as the development of diseases.
Great for gardeners in the UK who want to grow flowers but have limited space
Growing impatiens in a semi-pro polytunnel is excellent for UK homeowners with limited garden space in the United Kingdom. With a standard size of feet, you can plant anything you want and place the polytunnel on your balconies, decks, and patios.
Start plant growth early
With a semi-pro greenhouse, you can start planting even before the warm or cold season begins in your UK area. You can keep them safe inside the polytunnel and take them out once the weather becomes more tolerable.
Keep them safe from bad weather
Semi-pro greenhouses can also shield your plants from unpredictable weather. Snow, ice, or frost can kill even the hardiest plants, so place your impatiens in a polytunnel and wait until the weather becomes friendlier before taking them out, or you can grow them inside until maturity.
Final Thoughts on How to Revive Dying Impatiens
Wilting is one of the most common signs that there’s something wrong with your impatiens. Water stress and heat stress can also cause flowers and leaves to drop. You should keep the soil consistently moist but not thoroughly soaked. If they experience too much sun, transfer your plants to a shadier location.
Now that you know what to look for and how to revive dying impatiens, you’ll be able to enjoy beautiful blooms throughout the growing season.