stigmastylepistil

I have a large impatiens plant growing in a pot in the kitchen. When I got it as a gift from a friend it was massive and a little leggy. I thought that it looked like a annual that I was familiar with. In high school I worked at a nursery selling plants of all kinds and designing and planting flower beds for cute old ladies, so I got to know several annual flowers, but this plant wasn’t flowering when I got it. My friend had told me that this plant has some local folklore. It’s said that houseplants all over town originated from cuttings from one plant that a local bike frame builder had at his house. Fun! Anyway, when it flowered I saw that it was impatiens! That’s how I learned that impatiens propagated well by cutting. Seems like lots of gatherers already knew that once I did a google search.

I love food gardening but flowers are a huge part of bringing in pollinators and just making the space pretty and calming to be in. I don’t know much about the annual flower production industry, but if I can skip the buying step, I imagine I can avoid some nasty fertilizer and over watering with the commercial system… Plus the trucking!!

So, I am going to grow several cutting in water to transplant outside later this spring. On the web I found lots of more complicated methods , but I know that these impatiens already root just fine in water and do fine being transferred into soil later, that’s what I am going to do.

It’s dry here so I’ll give an update later on success as they go outdoors.

Here’s the plant. I don’t have pics of the flowers but they are the classic single flower light pink.

Here’s an example of one that has been growing great in the water.

Here’s right before a make the cut

Here’s a little cutting in the jar

Here are several baby impatiens clones