This year, they look awful. They start out okay don't thrive, get leggy, dry up, and die. Never in all the years have I ever lost plants unless a chipmunk dug them up. I know there's a rose disease going around. Is there something attacking impatiens? I've bought from greenhouses and the big box stores. I'm getting frustrated. As fast as I re- plant, the next day I find more. Help please?

Styrofoam does not hold water like perlite and when you plant your plants it will remain in your soil forever. If you bake or steam your soil they will melt so I wonder if hot humid weather would melt them.

I grow my own plants but I do buy a few. I haven't yet but if I ever found styrofoam it would be washed off and my plants placed in good soil. Like both of you I would never buy plants from that place again and they would know why when I complained long and loud.

Here's their email, copied/pasted from my inbox:

Good Evening Tiffany,

Thank you for contacting me regarding the plants that you purchased. I apologize that you are upset because you found bits or pearls of Styrofoam in your potting mixture.

We are aware that Styrofoam pellets along with perlite and vermiculite are some of the items that are often added to the soil mixture for aeration and water retention. This is a common element in most potting soil and especially potted plants or flats of plants. I will document your concern for review by appropriate management.

If there is anything else that I can do to further assist you, please let me know.

Thank you,

Brittany J.

Lowe's Customer Care

Rhizoctonia root and stem rot (fungus)
Symptoms: Seedling and bedding plant roots and stems
show brown decay. Wirestem may develop. --Wirestem may be the leggy part and if the roots are rotting too that would cause the plant to die.

The disease exists in the soil and if you leave your planters out year round it would be very easy for an infected leaf from your woods to get in one and you digging in the soil may have transfered it to all your pots on your tools.

Here's what chemicals they say to use, but soil borne funguses are hard to kill completely with chemicals

Control: Begin with sterilized soil, clean equipment, and
disease-free plant materials. Soil drenches containing
iprodione, PCNB, thiophanate-methyl, or ethazole +
thiophanate-methyl will prevent infections. Read the label for
lists of specific plants allowed for each fungicide.

Your best bet would be to get rid of the soil in your smaller pots, sterilize the pots and your tools and replace the soil with new soil and new plants. If you can move the others into the sun you could sterilize the soil by placing black plastic over them for the summer. The excessive heat and dryness will kill the spores of the disease.

I know these are expensive and drastic solutions but you have a choice which to go with

If it's just poor plants, I'm guessing it's the Lowe's ones although I bought from HD, and Kmart too plus some nurseries. Thank you for your help.

Lily, it appears that you may need to reduce the size of your container garden for the future. Changing the potting medium fairly regularly is an important task for the general health of any kind of plant you use, and you should be able to do it with ease. Most potting mediums break down (collapse) after several months, losing their porosity. That's a disaster for container-grown plants, which need oxygen at the roots just as much as they do water. The potting mix that I use personally remains coarse and porous for a much longer time than the typical commercial medium....but I still dump it after a couple of years.

Attempting to 'sterilize' an already used potting mix will only break down the consistency even further. You'd have to find clear plastic bags to do the job, rather than black plastic. I doubt that the dreaded Styrofoam would even melt during solarization, let alone in the normal heat and humidity of even the hottest summer. I don't find those little beads as offensive as others, believing that though they don't offer any benefits to the plant, they really can't hurt it much. I've even used a heavy layer of Styrofoam peanuts at the bottom of extra large containers to take up space and reduce weight and have discovered that plant's roots love the darned stuff, inhabiting the peanut layer thoroughly and happily all season.

If your problem does turn out to be downy mildew, which has become so prevalent in impatiens...you really can't blame your retailer. Even growers themselves are finding it all but impossible to control this disease. I suspect that we are going to have to see impatiens disappear from the market for awhile and allow researchers hurry the heck up in the development of resistant hybrids. This disease, like others, is very long lasting in the environment. If, in the very near future, your favorite bedding plant supplier no longer stocks impatiens, don't get mad....be thankful that they are trying to be responsible.

Sadly, the over-use of fungicides has resulted in very resistant strains of plant diseases, including downy mildews. We may have to resort to other means of protecting our plants....the good old fashioned ways such as selecting plants that are known to be resistant, keeping the site or container clean, changing potting soil regularly, keeping plant debris removed, avoiding over crowding and over-head watering, etc.

Neem oil has shown a lot of promise in the prevention and cure of downy mildew, and when applied with care would not be a problem for bees and other pollinators.

It will be a shame because as common as these flowers are, I love them and all the different colors. They need no special attention and remain beautiful till frost in my shady yard.

And if it's a southern disease, who knows where Lowes gets their plants and transport them north.

It's been said that plants pick up vibes from us. Maybe these styro-plants thought my disgust with the styrofoam was aimed at them. It probably is some kind of coincidence that these plants have had trouble, sounds like a lot of testimonials about plants doing fine with styro-enhanced soils. I'm sorry to have given you false hope that it was such an "easy problem" compared to this disease thing. Admit I've been on a rant about it whenever the slightest connection has been mentioned lately. If it's something that concerns anyone, at least I've made them aware so they may make an informed investigation/choice in the future.

If people want to use styrofoam, that's fine, if it's your choice. I think it's a horrible practice for bedding plants, a huge number of which will certainly be planted in the ground. Removing the plants and how they may or may not be doing from the equation, I still don't want my dirt/yard full of this stuff that does not decompose. And to tell people it's a common ingredient in most potting soil is beyond ridiculous, really sad once you stop laughing. L's has just found a cheap way to get rid of their trash - by having us bury it in our yards and pots as a soil amendment or conditioner or whatever.

What plants would take the place of the impatiens..beside coleus, begonia ?

For others, here are a few pics of mine affected. A plant pathologist at the University of Georgia that has written on the subject reports to me it "looks like downy mildew." I guess she's sold after I sent pictures, then asked if she can use them in her presentations.

The first picture shows one smaller one (white) affected. I'm sure it's a matter of time the rest will die...BUT hot weather is upon us and reports indicate the disease slows down or may go dormant. What happens when that cool, wet weather returns is unknown to me. Time will tell. All images from two days ago.

I'll offer some updates when I get some. I did agree to her using the pics providing I get more info on dealing with the disease. She did not mention anything about sterilization..."remove the infected plants and replant with anything other than impatiens." Of course this is only a four sentence email reply.

The next is a planter on its way...

And one clearly affected....

Torenia or Lobelia might work in their place, but much more as a trailer, not much height to them.

If you win the lottery, you could do Fuchsias.

I took a bag of just pulled dead ones yesterday..about 25. I had two old receipts from Lowes I found(there were many more) and took them back last night. She gave me $10 which is only a fraction I paid but I don't save receipts for flowers. She told me to ask the person in the nursery who I couldn't find, and the people I did see know less about plants than my 14 year old grandson. I have a basket of torenia which are okay as well as a few geraniums, coleus, begonias and browallia and potato vine. It's only the impatiens. I'll get some coleus or begonia ,which I don't like nearly as well.

I did not say I was certain--I said I think. Read the post correctly befoere you berate others!!

Without a picture it was impossible to say. I went by the fact that lily said they were leggy and there are very few diseases of Impatiens. No powdery mildew makes plants leggy.

When I did see pictures I saw that they are not leggy but normal growth for impatiens and you can see the mildew. Had I seen the pictures first I never would have suggested a fungal disease.

You can make the spray in smaller quantities too. The exact measurements don't matter as long as you have enough garlic.

I don't know if it will work but it works on powdery mildew so it's worth a try

But I must say that I think that the images scream fungal disease. Though these symptoms follow pretty much exactly what is described for downy mildew....rhizoctonia would not be a bad guess. No one has suggested that powdery mildew be a suspect.

Downy mildew is a fungus disease that is first noticed on the foliage. As the disease progresses, the leaves fall off, leaving bare stems which eventually collapse. Plants pretty much turn to mush. Once the tissue are infected and fully involved with this disease, there is no cure. Even heavy duty professional fungicides can't solve the problem.

Home brewed remedies will not be effective against this disease. It is not related to the fungus which causes powdery mildew. My favorite 'fix' for powdery mildew is daily rinsing with plain water! Can't say that for any other contagious fungal pathogen.

I'm thinking that the real power lies in the hands and pockets of us. We should not only stop buying impatiens (for the time being), but we need to clearly inform the retailers why we are doing so. They will begin putting pressure on the growers by not ordering or accepting delivery of impatiens.

In the very near future, we will probably be seeing "NEW! RESISTANT! " lines hit the market. Downy mildew is by no means a new nor a mysterious disease. The weakness is with the impatiens. You can be sure that plant breeders are hard at work all over the world.

By the way, this is an issue that our states ' Extension personal surely need to be addressing. Local offices can submit university based press releases for local publication and even appear on local
television. Hopefully, their Master Gardeners have been educated. Is that too much to hope for, lol?

On a side note, I was looking around at a Home Depot this morning and noticed a slew of Impatiens being displayed. One unknowing buyer was ready to step in and buy a bunch until I showed them the tell tale symptoms.

So, I have gaping holes here and there and wondered what some would think of annual Vincas? The areas get morning sun for about two hours and dappled shade the rest of the day. It won't hurt to try because I'm over populated with Coleus.

Any partial shade success stories with the annual Vinca?

Good suggestion, but for some reason I don't like the look, not to mention the cost, though I was probably comparing them too much to the common Impatiens. I did root a bunch of them last year(mid June), but they took forever to reach good size. By then it was almost frost date. Could also be the fact I had the rooted ones in too much shade to take off.

Perhaps I'll reconsider and get them rooted in March or April next year and give them more sun if the Impatiens problem continues...which I am sure it will.

After speaking to them they spotted a disease and destroyed all of them. Who knows, they could be a great source for the common Impatiens next year. I'd almost be spending the same amount of money with plugs versus guessing about big box store Impatiens.

Some of my trailing Petunias and Coleus this year from NC Farms

Another suggestion - grow your impatiens from seed. I've had them reseed in a basket and they grew just fine the next year with no winter protection. I've seen them coming up in beds where something else was planted, too. Seeds should be free of the virus, and it doesn't take long. You could start them in the house and transplant outside when it warms up. But you do need new potting soil, in all containers where you want to plant impatiens.

Once the disease has been introduced into an area, the only way to prevent it is by not planting impatiens.....period. Spores can remain in the soil for a long time. Not only that, they (spores) can be carried long distances by wind, birds, and other animals. By long distances, I mean hundreds of miles. DM doesn't respond particularly well to standard fungicides, since it isn't a true fungus but more fungus-like.

It's just not a good time for impatience right now.

bkay

rhizo is right..no more around here for awhile, but the disease does actually stop during hot and dry weather, such as what I have been experiencing. I still have some leftover here and there and they are regenerating.

As one happy footnote, my one small bed of New Guinea impatiens are 18" tall and packed with flowers, unaffected by the disease. I'm north of Boston and it's mid-September. But they are so expensive....