I know this is the seed *trading* forum, but I'm not sure where this would fit better (and if anyone has a seed or two I'd certainly love to trade for it/them) A friend of mine forwarded this from Ebay, which makes me skeptical already, and without a binomial name I can't find anything about this "Tibetan Blue Impatiens" anywhere else on the 'net. Here is the link... which doesn't work unless you copy the shortcut into your browser bar... I'm sure this is something ebay is making complicated. :shrugs::
http://cgi.ebay.com/TIBETAN-BLUE-IMPATIENS-NEW-DISCOVERY-EXCLUSIVE-RARE_W0QQitemZ4436602231QQcategoryZ20534QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
And.. can anyone confirm or deny the existance of such a plant? I love the whole relation to Shangri-la.. though I tend to think it goes a little too well with said myth. Better yet, has anyone *grown* this (and of course, has anyone saved seeds?) I have a penchant for blues and have a bunch of plants that would do very well side by side with this.. if it's real.. I don't mean to be skeptical but I'm picturing a big jewelweed plant with bright blue flowers and it just seems too good to be true.
Thanks for any info,
Byron.
This message was edited Feb 2, 2006 9:25 AM
This message was edited Feb 2, 2006 9:27 AM
CLOSED: Blue impatiens: Fact or fiction?
absolutely gorgeous...............
and no, no info....
Nobody seems to mention it but e-bay, and they do not give the latin name.
I did some research and found an excellent site for impatiens : http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/balsaminaceae/album?.dir=ca21
According to this site, the tibetan blue impatiens would be an Impatiens namchabawensis http://www.unine.ch/bota/ebolab/Staff/YMYuan/YMYphoto/Beauti4w3.html
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/balsaminaceae/detail?.dir=ca21&.dnm=612c.jpg&.src=ph
Dunno though if its gentian blue or purple-blue.
Seeds in England from secret seeds cie: http://www.secretseeds.com/cgi-bin/ss000001.pl?SS=impatiens&PR=-1&TB=A&SHOP=
This message was edited Feb 2, 2006 10:58 AM
Woo, thanks zarcanat, you are a better surfer than I. So it is true, binomial name and everything. I might actually throw down for.. ten seeds. Not much room for error.. makes me pretty nervous.
You just had to come and tell us about this didn't ya!! LOL o:)
My friend is mad at me too.. I told him I posted a request for any info on DG. "Just don't go telling anyone about the auction."
Oops.
YEEEOOOOZEERS
hey that is really cooool :0]
My colors are reds,whites and blues but have a hard time finding any blue flowers, not purple, a true blue.
i m new at gardening can i get some growing advice on these, if anyone has tried them ?
i will gladly share if someone wants to grow together? lol hahaha
thanks
sue
If you want to see some reel blue have a look to genus GENTIANA in the plant files (ex: http://davesgarden.com/pf/showimage/63963/) , Salvia patens is great too!
From the get-go, let it be known that this post and all following posts of mine (Heathrjoy) are MY opinion only and do not reflect the opinion of Dave's Garden or any of it's other members, so please don't hold them responsible for my opinions or what I write. Thank you everyone.
Ok, I hate to be the one to ruin all the fun that a true blue impatien might exist. But make of this what you will....
I did a Google search for dnorcott, the guy selling the impatien seeds. I found another eBay seller that says dnorcott is his friend, apparently they sell seeds together or something. The other seller is currently selling a "BLUE HIBISCUS NEW RARE UNBELIEVABLE COLOUR BREAK" http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7740883365&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&rd=1
Item # 7740883365
These guys aren't for real. Save your money. Other stuff they have for sale is listed as "haunted" or "possessed", most of their seeds are listed as "rare", "sacred", "scarce", or "alien." A lot of them are "new species". This is the 5th auction dnorcott has had up for the blue impatiens since Jan 20, 3 of the auctions so far had bids on them.
Ok, so who's mad at me for being a party pooper? :(
Message edited to add the first paragraph.
This message was edited Mar 18, 2006 10:51 AM
Message edited to say why I edited it! LOL
This message was edited Mar 18, 2006 10:57 AM
This hibiscus is an autralian one.
For who ever search a little on the web, you might find a seed source for it like I did. If somebody has it on e-bay, its because its somewhere else cheaper on the web!
To be an E-bayer, you have to be smart and to know when there is a real deal and stop before its a nightmare LOL!
Yeah the auction seemed slightly fishy.. but it looks like the plant is indeed real.. though it appears that the US's open importation of new species is only for American businesses as apparently secretseeds won't ship here (I encountered that while looking for perennial yellow sweet violets as well).
If only I had some Canadian gardening friends.. nudge nudge..
Ok! Pay for them, make them arrive here and then we will see if I ship them to you LOL!
Ok, when you guys get these seeds and they sprout and grow I want to see pics of the blooms cuz I don't believe any of them are real. Sorry, but I want to see YOUR pics.
I am not planing to buy these but since you talk about it... just because you are defying...
what are you proposing?
I am broke because I am back at school! But I just love surfing on the net to find new things, to my husband despair! LOL! Otherwise I would have given you some pics in the fall LOL!
haha, yeah I was never one to give up when faced with a nasty rule to try to work around. The importation requirements must be kindof strict all of a sudden which I think is good, there have been way too may garden-based introductions of species that have afterwards shown themselves to be real thugs and worse, invasives.. Then again I tend to believe that the reason we can't ship them in is because someone somewhere lobbied for this so that our American seed companies have a chance to make profit on new seeds.. I doubt it's been done for environmental reasons. Call me faithless and pessimistic. lol.
And hey, if you'd accept a packet of seeds for your trouble I'd certainly be willing to make an order. I promise not to let any blue impatients escape into the wilds of Syracuse. And then I definitely will take photos of the flower.. I never alter color in my plant/flower photos (unless I truly feel that a flower with a high sheen is really coming across as a very different color because of the reflected light.. but I'll note that when it happens)
Which seeds are you going to be ordeing Darwin?? Okay, okay....I have to admit I could be one of those suckers who purchased seeds of the blue impatiens. What can I say I am a sucker for buying seeds that are different. Now if these are the seeds you were going to be buying......
;) Donna
I want to be your friend PerennialGirl! You seem to have lots of nice plants to suck! I just went through some of your threads! LOL!
Anytime!!
:) Donna
Seed order? Did somebody say seed order!?? Where do I sign up!! LOL I'm all in for blue impatiens!!!
Ronnie
Well.. Unless they tell me that they can't fill the order I don't mind adding a few extra packs to the list. I was thinking maybe the first ten people to ask for a pack and that's all.. mostly because I'm a slightly worried about this plant's unknown status. So if you want a pack of seeds I'd like to make sure you're willing to keep a close eye on this plant in case it shows signs of being a thug or worse (ie, it popping up all over your yard and in your neighbor's yard) at least until it shows up in US based seed catalogs. If we gardeners make sure our plants aren't 'running wild' literally then we won't need laws to tell us what we can't plant. Or at least, not as many.
If this gets too popular and more than ten people really want this hopefully someone else up North would be willing to work with someone else on a combined order, or hopefully next year (as long as it behaves) I'll have seeds to share.. I don't actually grow any other impatients so I'm hoping they'll be mostly true.
Byron,
I'm going to check out a few other things and will get back with you for an order. I definitely want at least the blue impatiens and will be growing them in pots so I don't think for me it will be invasive. i will be careful though.
TTYS, Ronnie
Would I qualify as being among the first 10 people? I'd love to have some of the blue impatiens seed and I also promise to only growing them in a pot.
Well so far the only people who have definitely responded are Ronnie and beaker_ch, so yep, you've made it. And I appreciate the attention to my environmental hangups... lol.. though I will probably try some in the ground as well. I'm fairly certain that this genus isn't a big 'spread by runner' group but I know very well that the seeds can get propelled pretty far. . and then be carried by ants around etc.. same as a lot of very well behaved garden plants, I'll add. But I'd imagine most invasives weren't really *expected* to be able to escape and establish outside of the garden environment. Thanks for letting me know you'll keep them on a shorter leash until we know for sure ;).
I'd try them.
OK, so just let us know the details of the exchange and I hope it's not some dark alley somewhere (LOL). For myself, just round to nearest dollar and include postage.
Alright, so far I've got 4 people who want packets of the impatients, with or without other seeds from the secret seeds offering. Which means there's still plenty of room if anyone else wants to get in on this order. So far I'm counting
luvsgrtdanes
beaker_ch
Perennialgirl
and Melissa_Ohio (send me a d-mail to confirm, and let me know if you want anything else from the catalog). zarcanat I've got you too but since you've somehow been able to fend off the bite of the blue bug and don't *NEED* a bright blue impatient (lol) I figured I wouldn't count you as one of the ten.
I'll probably be putting the order in later this week but I'm not going to swear by that (I get a little tiny bit absentminded sometimes).. If you haven't already sent me a d-mail with a final order etc. that would be helpful, and before I actually do the full order I'll send out a d-mail to each person listing what I'm ordering for them etc. Let me know if anyone has any other suggestions.
As far as paying etc. goes, first off it's all in British pounds, just be aware.. I'll probably do conversions when I total everything up. I'm going to pay upfront and probably not be too worried about reimbursement finding its way to me right away, but definitely by the time you get your seeds it would be nice if a check or paypal payment etc. was on its way. I'm thinking about dividing the original S&H charge up by the number of us ordering and then adding each person's postage from me onto that. Let me know if anyone has a better system to propose. This is my first time arranging anything like this (can you tell?)
lol, hope everyone's getting as excited for this order and spring as I am ;).
Byron.
DarwinESF
If I could get in on this sure would appreciate it, promise to plant in pots, I have more violets than grass, so know about violets all too well! Lol
Just let me know how much and I will send a check ASAP!
Lea
When I try to look at the catalog... it brings me back to this thread. Something weird going on in my computer I'm sure.
Melissa- I had that problem too, are you using Firefox? When I browse there with Firefox it brings me back here on certain tabs.. which was really confusing, I figure it must be crossed with a back button somehow... but I was able to get it right using Explorer.. grudgingly, lol.
LeBug- you're number 5, congrats ;). Once the order's done I'll send everyone a tally, you can send a payment then or wait until the seeds get to you, either way is find by me. Well.. maybe either's fine unless you've got some really nasty feedback going on ;).
DarwinESF,
You are a trip, I had to go back and check my feedback, thought you might have seen something I hadn't lol
Lea
Byron, that sounds like a good plan Keep us posted.
Ronnie
Lea, I definitely didn't mean you (didn't even check on any yet) it just occurred to me as I was typing it. lol.
;-) lol
How long do you have to leave feedback on Ebay? I think it is 90 days.
How long does it take impatients to bloom?
If he and his friend are selling seeds that aren't really what they say,
can the buyer post negative feedback by the time they finally bloom?
Are the seeds a hybrid?
I'd love to have a blue hibiscus but just can't bring my self to trust that duo.
Let us know how things turn out.
Kathy
Hey Kathy,
Those are good points about e-bay, definitely a bit of a hole in the feedback system when you talk about plants... seeds specifically I suppose. I just got an order of seeds and I'll be waiting until I can give valid feedback on them one way or another ;).
I could be wrong but it looks to me like the company Secret Seeds is not necessarily affiliated with the person/persons doing the ebaying.. but I think someone bought a few packets and is reselling them, and it looks like they copy and pasted the image from the original website. I'm only saying this because the company has a good rating with the Watchdog and the site itself seems very professional with good information etc. I'd say the style of the ebay advert. is a lot different ;). So I'm pretty sure this is an actual blue colored Impatiens spp. from Tibet. It is a species, I don't know how true all of the genetics information is (sounds like a weird kindof hype to me, though in theory it makes sense) but if it's a species then it should come true from seed.. though it may be able to cross pollinate other species in the genus in which case the seeds would show who knows what traits. But plants forced to self pollinate will come true from seed, always (from a statistical point of view, might be a weird sport now and then of course).
I don't necessarily doubt the blue hibiscus except in the shade of blue and in the type of plant... hibiscus just tends to mean the mallow family and it doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be a nicely formed small bushy plant with glossy green leaves and big showy flowers that you can grow in a sunny window with ease. The thing I don't really trust is that they don't give enough information to go looking for cultural info.. probably because the seeds are listed under their botanical name for whatever price they got them at on different websites ;). That's just a guess though.
Hope that helps?
yep, it does,
Thank ya
Kathy
Did I hear "blue"?? might do okay in the shade? I would love to be included in this, Byron, if it's not too late and promise to keep in a pot and not use in retaliation for a neighbor who used to use me for target practice with his beebee gun when he was growing up.