Can I bring my potted impatiens plants inside over the winter?

Answer

You can bring your impatiens in over the winter. Keeping them healthy until the spring is not a sure thing - it will depend upon the light you have inside and to some extent luck. It is worth a try and they may bring you some additional months of beauty even if they don't make it all the way until spring.

Make the initial move gradually, over about a period of a week with increasing time indoors so as not to shock them with very different temperature and light. Before they come in, check carefully for insects and then quarantine the plants away from others for two weeks.

Inside they will need very bright but not direct sunlight. The amount of light will control whether they continue to bloom or not and the extent to which the plants will become leggy. (If you are growing Impatiens repens, a creeping impatiens, it needs more direct light.) Keep the plants at normal household temperatures and mist spray them daily or keep them on wet pebble trays for humidity. Water moderately, letting the surface of the soil dry before watering again and never leaving the plants to sit in run-off water which can lead to fungal root rot. Feed every two weeks as long as they are continuing to grow.

If the light level is too low, they may enter dormancy with no new growth. If that occurs, reduce watering further until the plant resumes growth.

Courtesy of NYBG Plant Information Service

  • Last Updated Nov 22, 2022
  • Views 3145
  • Answered By Leslie Coleman

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