I think it’s safe to say that the longer that I garden, the more plants that I grow and learn about, the deeper my appreciation for all plants and the living world becomes. Life itself takes on a more ‘miraculous’ quality and I am both humbled by this and saddened by the indiffference and wide spread disregard and destruction that dominates the relationship of so much of the human population with regards to the green world. (sigh) How, I sometimes wonder, can so many people not ‘see’ what is around them, the beauty and the miraculousness of it?  Having said that, I dive back into another installment of Jimi’s ‘Obsession’!

Impatiens omeiana ‘Sango’

Everyone has grown Impatiens, right!  It’s one of those ubiquitous bedding annuals even many non-gardeners know that they might put in a pot on their shady porch. I used to grow these by the hundreds when I put together display beds for Parks as they were one of the few freely flowering options available from the bedding plant industry that could ‘produce’ on shade sites. It’s so well known that its common and genus name are the same, a relatively rare occurence in the plant world. As they tend to do, hybridizers pushed the limits on these and, over the years, have developed a good number of cultivars that are tolerant of direct sun, probably increasing their popularity while at the same time teaching an unhelpful message to the general public, that it isn’t really necessary to pay attention to a plant’s requirements…ours are what matters, but that is an entirely different issue than what I want to cover here. Continue reading →