Last summer I had beautiful impatiens. They have long been one of my favorite landscape flowers, perhaps because we have always lived amongst the trees and impatiens are one of a few flowering plants that will flower profusely with low light.
This is one of the two arrangements from last year.
I can't find a picture of this pot from last year, but I know it had several colors of impatiens, and now all the blossoms I see are red. It seems to me that I recall having a similar experience many years ago when I had impatiens bloom in my garden from the previous year's seeds.
I asked Google about my observations. Mr. A-I-nstein tells me, "Most commercially bought impatiens are hybrids (F1). While they produce seeds, those seeds rarely inherit the specialized color of the parent, instead, reverting to the original dominant color of the species (typically pink, white or red.)"
So I have a bonafide genetics experiment going on in my garden! Hooray for Mendel!
I, too, love Impatiens plants and thank you for enlightening me on why the various colors of impatiens revert to pink, red, or white over the years because they were hybrids to start with.
ReplyDeletePretty pictures!
Hugs!
Hah! Oh course you like impatiens...another thing in common!
DeleteI never thought of saving the seeds. I do of most other plants but not this one. Now I know!
ReplyDeleteI didn't intentionally save the seeds. Impatiens seeds 'explode' and spread all over. They were simply in the soil of the pot and grew when the time was right. However, with other plants; echinacea, and holly hock, for example, I have collected seeds.
DeleteImpatiens are pretty plants, but not something I normally plant. Maybe will give them a try this year, for a change.
ReplyDeleteNice! They are both pretty pots of flowers:)
ReplyDelete