Impatiens with yellow leaves?
Question:I have yellow leaves on impatiens in flower bed (soil and lots of mulch) with morning sun. But I have green beautiful leaves on impatiens in a plain soil window box on the deck (hot afternoon sun).
Can you suggest what can I do to make the front of the house look like the back of the house?
Answers:
If you have too much mulch around any plant, you run the risk of smothering your plants. If you water mulched plants too often, you can make the situation worse. If you combine those two situations with heavy, clay soil, you have the perfect storm.
Not that mulch is bad. It's not. But, be sure to pull back the mulch about two inches or more from the base of the plant. Plants need to breath and doing this will also discourage insect and fungus damage.
Impatiens do just fine in half-day sun that is not too intense or up against a sunny wall. Your morning sun is not the problem. I suspect over watering and lack of oxygen. Don't over feed, either. If your soil is heavy clay, you might consider a liquid fertilizer with oxygen to help the problem.
The fact that your impatiens in a window box are doing OK would lead me to believe that drainage is your primary problem. I don't think it is soil nematodes, but it could be. My experience with those critters is that the plant withers and dies before I see any yellow leaves.
Hope that helps.
yellow leaves usually indicate too much water. Your soil could contain too much clay which results in bad drainage. The window box is unlikely to hold water like soil can leaving your impatiens in good condition. If you've been watering every day then try cutting back and see what happens. I only water my impatiens once a week until it gets really hot then I'll water them every couple of days.
Plant Stunted, Leaves Yellowed or Lesions on Roots Means Nematodes
Root knot nematodes and lesion nematodes sometimes attack impatiens, especially in the South. Nematodes are not insects, but slender, unsegmented roundworms. Most are soil-dwellers, less than 1/20 inch long, invisible to the unaided eye. They have piercing-sucking mouth parts. Impatiens infested with nematodes look sickly, wilted, and stunted. They develop yellowed or bronzed foliage. Often they decline slowly and die. Their root systems are poorly developed, even partially decayed.
The effects of nematode activity are most apparent in hot weather when plants recover poorly from mid-day heat, staying wilted into the evening. Dig up and trash severely infested plants, making sure to also remove the soil around the roots. As a preventative, fertilize impatiens with fish emulsion diluted in water and poured on the soil as a drench. It repels nematodes.
Impatiens does best in light shade or filtered, indirect light, but it can handle some direct sun if it is limited to about 2 hours a day, preferably in the morning. New Guinea types are even more tolerant of bright sun. Certainly impatiens’ brilliant colors show to best advantage in locations with some shade. Sunshine tends to bleach out paler impatiens flowers.
improve and aerate your soil
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