Impatiens will self sow....I don't get a lot....but my daughter used to plant one solid color in a bed in front....and fairly often she would find enough re-seeders to mess up her color scheme.
I had one growing in a crack in the drive way a couple of years back.
Linda C

I've never seen any evidence that impatiens can self-seed, at least in my garden. I've seen it with alyssum, cosmos, calendual, snaps and cleome. Can't think of anything else.

Why not leave a couple in and see what they turn into?

I have never had them self seed but my mother and my daughter have--guess conditions have to be just right.

The reason I seldom get impatiens reseeding is I mostly grow them in pots on the deck of front steps. No where for any seed to grow should it fall.
Kinda C

They do reseed, and you usually get a different color that that which you've planted. I see it all the time in my impatien bed.

Can't resist posting this picture. One of my favorite gardens is the one that results from seeds getting caught in the crack between the concrete and the brick each year on my patio. All started from the rectangle pot on wall where original impatiens were planted. I water this garden and am sure debris gets hosed into those cracks to feed and nourish these babies. They also produce more plants than can grow there so I wiggle them out and plant them elsewhere. Don't care that they come up multicolored. The color is all the same value and they always look great together. Nearly had a fit the year my DH wanted to pressure wash all the "dirt" out of those cracks!!! Pauline
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and this picture from a couple of years ago, showing them in pots, etc., which is where they all started self seeding
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Here is a link that might be useful: My pictures

Paulinep
O.M.G. your gardens are beautiful.I love the bench with the flowers growing over like that.Is that a large pot propped up behind that the flowers are growing in?I am in the midst of enlarging a bed and I have got some great ideas from your pics.Must be wonderfully relaxing there as your picture of kitty on the bench shows.Wonderful,just beautiful,and thanks for the inspiration,and the great post.I look at the impatients with a whole different attitude now, as it was not my favourite flower before.
JUST AWESOME GARDENS.
MollyZone5 Ontario Canada.

Ohhh wow, Molly is right, Pauline, your garden is breathtaking! Now I wish I'd bought more impatiens this year... :) And I always take SO long to choose the colors when I'm at the garden centre and then I always regret that I didn't get more variety.

Pam, not to worry, this is the time you can "pinch and Poke" Most impatiens (but not the New Guinea) respond well to this: They start to get too leggy just about now and if you don't pinch them back, they will not be pretty in a few months when I really enjoy them the most. Start now to pinch back your favorite impatiens by the hundreds of stems and poke the pinched bits into potting soil or the ground, you can use rooting hormone but it usually isn't necessary. Make sure those plants receive enough water for a few weeks and you have a whole bunch of new plants and keep doing this and you won't have to "decide" which ones to get, just get a few of each and you will have literally hundreds more if you "pinch and poke" Now is the time! More than 75% of mine take root. I had friends who routinely pinched back their plants to make them fuller and actually threw away the pieces!! Needless to say after seeing my garden in the late summer, and asking me where I got so many plants, they found the way to spend very little for lots and lots of plants. Do this religiously during one year and you won't have to worry, you will get reseeded plants the following year when they all go to seed. EVERY one of the plants on the concrete came that way. I also have found that when I "worried" about the color, it wasn't necessary. Virtually all impatiens of all colors look good together, reds, pinks corals, etc., and I used to wonder why. As most artists will tell you, they work together because they are all the same value (intensity of color) and somehow they just look beautiful together as I hope my pictures have shown.
I have started a white impatien garden mostly the little mini's combined with the white New Guinea, and white and green caladium and holly ferns. It is developing nicely and I just pinched a whole bunch of the white minis to make more plants. I will take a picture this weekend and post if I can remember to do that.
Pauline
Pauline

I have have impatiens reseed for the past couple of years in a mostly shady front bed.

My kids love to touch the seed pods which explode when ripe and throw seed everywhere!! Hours of free entertainment, and I must admit, I've been known to be quite entertained by this phenomenon myself.

I never knew they reseeded. Mines never die. I have the same ones year after year. I just cut them down to nothing and let them grow back out.

Jen26---It is pure delight to see those spring loaded seed pod burst and fling their seeds and at age 63, I never get tired of seeing that little miracle too.
Pauline

vinelover---do you get frost in your area? Mine last a long time but get nipped by frost, but not the earliest plant to do so, the coleous seem to go first, do you just cut your plants back after they get nipped? of do you do it while still thriving? I am in zone 8 here in NC and it would be great to keep them going all the time if it were possible.
Pauline

paulinep, great photos, I love them! I do the same kind of gardening, "perimeter gardening" I call it, leaving the center of a "room" open. I love photos, I wish this site had more more more photos!

I have many many books, but the best photos are from passionate gardeners.

Great job!

So it sounds like I won't have a problem with finding the seed pods when the time comes?I am in Zone5 and it might get a little too cold here for them to reseed?I went out last night and bought 2 flats so I should get lots of seed for next year.
Pauline,thanks to you I am on a mission.I have a north facing wall that I am going to mass plant,and the shady side of my deck is going to be all pots with just Impatiens.
I have a small greenhouse that I start my plants in the spring so I can grow lots of these next year.Thanks again for the inpiration.

Pauline I meant to tell you how beautiful your garden is. The way you have the impatiens in the pots around the bench is so nice. Anyway, I live in southern california. I don't get frost but it gets chilly at night. I go for a while with no flowers and just a few stems. I just cut away everything and let them sit. When it warms up, they start to get little buds and then they bloom and bloom and spread and bloom. I water them a lot when its hot. When the weather cools down then the impatiens slows down.

Pauline your garden is absolutely beautiful. I live in Zone 7a and just purchased a few impatiens this year. I have a few questions if you do not mind, as I am new to being an impatien mother. I purchased the New Guinea Impatiens. All of the flowers have this pink thing hanging from the bottom of then that kind of looks like a new root. Are these roots? Does this variety of Impatiens also resow itself, and are these plants easy to multiply.
Thanks,
Engi
P.S. I might have more questions later if you do not mind

I bought impatient hanging baskets this year, with the moss liner. They were big and beautiful... NOW though, they are looking sad. I feed them regularly with miracle grow. I water them once a day, sometimes twice.. I think I actually have forgotten once or twice, ooops... anyway.. what can I do to get them looking awesome???

Please help...
Thanks in advance.

Julie

They must NOT ever get dry.....forget the Mirical grow...but don't forget the water....
I never feed my impatiens. I Plant in a potting soil with a timed release fertilizer added and with polymer crystals and they bloom like mad until frost.
Linda C

Sadly I"m sure the nursery where I bought my basket didn't put the polymers in the soil. Ok so I won't bother with the miracle grow, but once a day you think water or twice? I can always take a picture and you can see for yourself.

Thanks for replying!
Julie

Hi there,
Your gardens are outstanding! My impatiens were beautiful- I didn't know I was supposed to 'pinch & poke' when they first became leggy. All thats left of them are legs and they've completely lost their colorful petals. Is it too late to cut them back now? If I leave them, will they grow again next Spring? I have been pulling them & throwing them out each year, when they turn the way they are now. Please let me know if you have advice. Thank You, Joanne

pauline, theese are beautiful!

Thanks for sharing your beautiful garden, Pauline. I just loved it. What a treat on a hot day!

I live north of Boston and have a lot of impatiens--mostly Blue Pearl and white. I do get the occasional seedling but certainly not the display you have, Pauline. Interestingly, mine also seem to like to come up next to the walk.

I love your "pinch and poke" method. A good friend of mine used to buy half the impatiens she needed in the spring. Then she'd pinch off the tops of each little plant and poke them into soil in flats. All of this was on her enclosed porch--too cold to do it outdoors here. So she ended up always getting her impatiens at half the price.

Impatiens are some of my favorite flowers. Love that they reseed when moisture allows. Here in NC, if I rave about reseeding impatiens, people wrinkle their noses and say you have to wait too long for the reseeders. But I don't get that, because you can always tuck in some bigger ones (trying not to disturb the soil beyond the little holes you make) in the area, or some coleus for fun, to hold you while you wait for the reseeders. But how nice to have one area in your garden that will turn beautiful all on its own as long as you give it water.

I had to start over this year because I lost my most of my reseeders when we had some dry years and I failed to water. But did I plant them in color groups like other people? No - I planted them in a raucous freestyle with all my favorite colors, as if they had done it themselves. Ha!

I love these flowers ,but mine never come back,I live in Marietta Ga. Is anyone with reseeding seeds willing to sale them . I`ll forward my address if you will email me .Thanks

Beautiful Pauline! Love caladiums with them too, and the refreshing white and green leaved plants.
Linda