Impatiens balsamina Seeds | Garden Balsam
LATIN NAME: Impatiens balsamina
COMMON NAME: Garden Balsam, Rose Balsam
Plant Profile
Known to gardeners as Garden Balsam, Impatiens balsamina is a neat, upright, succulent in the balsam family, native to warm regions of eastern and southeastern Asia, while it is grown as a cheerful garden flower. Given room and time, it reaches roughly One metre. The flowers pull in pollinating insects, which quietly widens its usefulness in the garden. For the small amount of care it requires, the return is remarkable.
Science & Biotechnology
Research touching on Impatiens balsamina ranges from the botany of the balsam family to practical horticulture, including seed handling, propagation and the selection of superior forms. Garden balsam has a real and distinguished place in the research. Nothing exotic is required: standard seed-sowing practice, done carefully, is enough.
Uses & Benefits
Garden Balsam brings genuine presence to the garden and earns its keep across the growing season. Ecologically, garden balsam is a generous plant of the garden. Its many showy, spurred flowers feed bees and many insects, and its fine, leafy stems give a neat, fresh presence to border and summer garden. For a grower, garden balsam is an easy and cheerful annual, and for a gardener it brings a showy, spurred, colourful flower to summer garden. Mature plants need little attention in a well-chosen position.
Busy Lizzies are shade-garden staples; jewelweed, a wild relative, is the classic American folk remedy rubbed on poison-ivy rashes and nettle stings.
Growing from Seed
Garden Balsam is one of those generous plants that come along well from seed. Sow the seed evenly over the surface and cover lightly, using a loose, well-drained seed compost, and keep it just moist in bright light until the seedlings are well up. Move strong seedlings into individual pots, keep them in good light, and set them out when the weather and their size agree.
Our Take
It grows as a neat, upright, succulent, so its place in the garden is easy to plan. Its long record of traditional use, described above, gives the plant a story beyond ornament. Its wants are few — a sunny spot, soil that drains, and time to settle in.
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