Impatiens balsamina seeds?

I ordinarily avoid posting duplicate messages, but I thought this one was kinda/sorta propagation and kinda/sorta seed saving, so it's on both forums.

I planted the old-fashioned I. balsamina 'Carombola' mix this year. Yes, they're easy to grow, yes the camellia-like blooms are pretty, but boy do these plants get big! The first seed pods are swelling, and I know they'll be ready to harvest pretty soon.

I've only seen "mixed" seed offered commercially or for trade, but I was thinking it would be nice to be able to offer the various colors separately.

Here's my question - will they grow true to parent if I take the trouble to keep the seeds separated out according to color?

I'm not sure if they'd be true or not Vols. I think the best method with some mixes if your trying to isolate a color is to cull out colors you don't want. If your trying to save just pink ones you should pull out all the other colors as soon as they appear to keep them from crossing with the pink.

Are these what I know as "Touch-me-nots"? If so, how do you harvest ripened seeds without them exploding all over the place (hence, the name)?

Put a bag around/under the seed pod before exploding it.

My 6 YO daughter and I just had a great time harvesting hundreds of seedpods from these plants today! (I want to grow a gardener in at least one of my kids, and she's the youngest, so she's my best hope right now, LOL!)

We found that if you pick the whole seed pod carefully, you can get it to over a paper bag, then press to let it explode the seeds into the bag, (exploding the seed pods was pretty cool to a six year old!)

Now to dry them and get them packaged for trading :)

terry i have several colors and they seem to be true to the parents-i do have one this year im not sure where it came from-has double blooms-rose like. Saving all of those ones!!!
dori

If you let them reseed they can take over believe me. Last year I let them go and they are every where. I like them and am going to try putting them somewhere that I need more color and won't mind them spreading. I want all of the
seeds of them I can get. If anyone has extras let me know.


This message was edited Friday, Sep 7th 10:53 AM

HoniBee, I'll have seeds for trade soon. (As soon as they dry out and I get them packaged up, LOL!)

I have one plant that is HUGE - we're talking 4+ feet. I'm keeping the seeds from it separate from the others, and will grow it out next year to see what happens. I have no idea why it's so gigantic compared to the others (which are good-sized but not THAT big!)