Give Your Shady Garden Nonstop Blooms By Planting This Colorful Flower

Gardens often take a lot of care and planning to get them where they are pretty and blooming all year long. However, getting the timing right for all the different flowers is time-consuming. Thankfully, there is one flower that will bloom all season if you live in the right plant hardiness zone. Known as impatiens, these flowers come in many different colors and are more than happy to produce brilliant blossoms all year long.

What makes impatiens (Impatiens walleriana specifically) perfect for shade gardens is that they can thrive with little to no direct sunlight, and they bloom near the end of spring and all of summer and early fall. As long as your shady spot has some well-draining soil and plenty of water, these plants are fairly easy to maintain. There is another variety, New Guinea Impatiens (Impatiens hawkeri), but they do better with partial sun. 

They grow pretty fast and their flowers pop up almost right away, meaning you don't have to wait around until the end of the year for them to start blooming. As long as they don't get too cold or dry, they will also keep going, with new blooms replacing the old ones on their own. Occasionally, when they are starting to grow leggy, don't hesitate to cut them back — the flowers will appear again. For the most part, impatiens take care of themselves, so you don't have to worry about how to correctly deadhead flowers for a thriving garden or pruning in general. You just have to make sure they are getting enough water, but not staying moist, and perhaps occasionally add a little fertilizer to keep them blooming.

Impatiens are perennial flowers, especially in USDA zones 10 and 11 –  though, they can grow anywhere from zone 7 to 11 without much of a problem as they are fairly cold tolerant (but they will be annuals instead of perennials). Unfortunately, they don't work in every state and ones like North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Maine, and Alaska are notoriously difficult for impatiens to grow. However, because of their flexibility and shade tolerance, you can plant them almost anywhere, including directly into the soil, in pots, in window boxes, or in hanging baskets on your porch, such as DIY planters made from old wine boxes. 

Another benefit of these flowers is that they are non-toxic and attract beneficial pollinators to your yard like bees, hummingbirds, and even butterflies. These flowers grow up to 36 inches tall and come in a range of colors, including white, red, pink, purple, orange, and yellow, depending on the cultivar you choose. Many varieties are bright and bold. 

Since they offer up a lot of blooms per plant, they can easily be the star of a garden or draw the eye to a certain place. The Impatiens Beacon Salmon is a great example, as it is a bright salmon-orange color that stands out, and its dozens of flowers can fill up a pot or garden bed, creating a bright spot of color. Thanks to their popularity, there are all sorts of varieties with various petal and plant colors, and different flower shapes and sizes, so you can get all the benefits of an impatiens plant, while still finding a flower that fits your established garden or outdoor space well.