I brought my tinctoria inside, too afraid to try it outside--but if I ever get enough of it to try in the ground, I would put it near a wall and cover it with lots of leaves to protect the rootstock from actually freezing. Seems to me if it can survive in wet English winters, cold wet ground won't bother it, but deep freezing might. As for namchabarwensis, the Tibetan blue impatiens, yes indeed it reseeds prolifically, once you have good seed set you should have lots of seedlings next spring. I have tons of them and gave some to a friend nearby in Bronxville and he had them reseed this spring too. I brought pots of small resown seedlings to the local NARGS spring plant sale, where they were snapped up pretty quicky, so maybe they will be resowing in other peoples gardens too. It was an ideal summer for them, as well as other impatiens, cool and wet. Good for my potted tinctoria too, but still no flowers. I. speciosa is not a name I recognize off the top of my head, is it another asian species? Ernie DeMarie Tuckahoe NY Still some flowers that have survived mild frost earlier in the month, aconitum sp, late mums, nemesia capensis, calendulas, sweet alyssum, cyclamen hederifolium, rostrincula dependens, helianthus sp, etc. Wave Hill BG in the Bronx had a wonderful stand of yellow leaved Salvia elegans in full bloom near the entrance last Saturday. -----Original Message----- From: bonaventure@optonline.net To: pbs@lists.ibiblio.org Sent: Mon, Nov 23, 2009 6:49 pm Subject: [pbs] Hardiness of Impatiens speciosa and tinctoria I got these two from Annie's Annuals and now in my central coastal New Jersey arden zone 7 the leaves and tops of the stems are frost-mushed. A cap of bubble rap around and over the remaining basal stems held in place all around by lastic gallon jugs filled with water may protect from winter wet and moderate he temperature so that the tubers survive? mp. omeiana and arguta rootstocks have done so for me, without protection, and f course native capensis and garden variety balsamina reseed yearly rolifically. Now I hope that all the shed seeds from the sapphire-blue amchabarwensis I bought again this year do so also, and all the hybrid cross ollinations I've attempted. I can't wait for spring , its just that I'm mpatient (groan). onaventure ______________________________________________ bs mailing list bs@lists.ibiblio.org ttp://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php ttp://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/