17 December 2009

A BLUE impatiens!

 I've been wildly, crazily excited about this since I was browsing through the Secret Seed catalog on-line, and stumbled across their listing for Impatiens namchabarwensis.

Okay, drooling yet? A blue impatiens -- And such a lovely shade of blue too! According to Strange Wonderful Things, (which is SUCH a great name for a website) it is a new species only discovered in 2003 in Tibet in a remote canyon twice as deep as the grand canyon! Even more excitingly, everything I've been able to find describes it is very easy to grow, carefree, and even "gently" self seeding!

At this point I was almost jumping up and down. Well: Let's be honest, I was jumping up and down, nothing "almost" about it. My partner is used to this by now and simply asked me what plant I was excited about, to which I replied "A BLUE impatiens! BLUE, I tell you, BLUE!!!"

Finally, I sat back down to put in my order for the seeds, only to see the words "OUT OF STOCK" in big red letters.

Out of stock? Are you kidding me? I rushed to google. Out of stock. Out of stock. Everyone seemed to be out of stock. Finally I went to e-bay and found someone selling 7 seeds. Just 7 of them! On auction, and the bidding wasn't to close for 6 DAYS! I quickly put my bid in, and PRAYED no one else would notice it. Thank goodness, no one did, and the seeds are now on their way to me! Glorious blue impatiens, you shall be MINE!

The good news is that this looks like a super awesome plant you are all going to want. The bad news is that I just bought the only supply of seeds I could find anywhere. So I guess you are all out of luck... (I should feel bad about this, but mostly I'm just feeling smug that I snatched up these seeds in time) But as soon as I get the plants growing, I'll be harvesting all the seeds I can so I can spread the joy around to anyone else who wants to try this amazing looking plant.

Addendum: I just re-read this post before publishing it, and it comes off as a little... extreme. But what can I say. I ALWAYS go completely, utterly, head-over-heels gaga for true blue flowers. If you don't suffer from a similar true blue obsession (Carol, is there a name for this particular gardening disorder?), you might think I'm a little crazy. Whatever. I don't care. It is BLUE.  

7 comments:

Jim/ArtofGardening said...

This does sound awesome, but I'm somewhat suspicious of photos of plants. I'll be anxious to see what you get in teh spring and how blue they really are.

Joseph said...

Yeah, I know... blue flowers have a tendency to actually be purple in person. We'll see! I'll certainly post pictures and thoughts once they flower.

Lona said...

LOL. Just figures they would be out of stock. Everyone including myself will be wanting blue impatiens.I hope it is a true blue also that would really make it a winner.

Carol Michel said...

Gardening disorder? This seems like a normal reaction, after all it is BLUE! BLUE! And you have the 7 seeds left in the universe! Good for you!

Wait, it's BLUE! I want some!!!

See, perfectly normal...

Christine B. said...

And here I was thinking I could order some of those seeds to add to my blue flower collection...you lucky guy, you got the last ones!

CB

rochelle at studio 'g' said...

Oh - I can't wait to hear how these work out for you. I had a client tell me she saw such a thing in a local garden store a couple years ago and she wanted them (I plant roughly 300 impatiens for her every year) - I researched and came across these, but never any seeds. I think she was smoking something - or perhaps was looking at something else - anyway, good luck and let us know how they grow.

Cool Garden Things Blog said...

Wow...very cool...I'll be looking for these in peoples gardens...
GartenGrl