Impatiens

You totally thought I spelled that title wrong, didn't you? ha.

Earlier this week, I had 3(!!) days off in a row, and I took advantage of the time to complete a little home project I'd been contemplating. Here at Chez Sweets, our back balcony is doing just fine, thankyouverymuch, but I wanted to spruce up our boringly generic front door. The biggest challenge to finding something to grow there is the approximately 20 minutes (seriously) of direct sun that spot gets, at least in the summer. When the giant, shady tree loses its leaves in the fall, there will be significantly more light, and I already have some mums planned. But I digress.

I did a little research, hit the garden center, found nothing on my list, but then saw and remembered about Impatiens. ah ha! I remember these guys! They love the shade. So I picked some in a pretty color, forgetting about the brick red door mat we have, and found some pretty planters at Marshall's (yes, I had a good week).

Before I planted anything, I played around with container positions and sizes until I found one I liked. As you might have guessed, I like the last one the best. I filled my new pots with potting soil we had left over from other projects, watered it and mixed it around a bit because it was super dry, and then transplanted my baby Impatiens, and watered again. Four plants went in the larger pot and two in the smaller. The only thing left was to sweep up the dirt I spilled onto the downstairs neighbors' walk. whoops.

Luckily, Roomba was there to live up to her namesake. 

I'm happy with how these turned out, and I'm curious how well they do in the bright shade. Now maybe I need to figure out a new mat!