Disease Is Killing Top Landscape Flower Impatiens
February 21, 2012 | 1 min to read
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Starting in late October each year, Palm Beach County enters a colorful phase as millions of impatiens are planted to jazz up the entrances of gated communities and add punch at shopping centers, banks and resorts.
But this year there's trouble with the flowers known for their hues of coral, orange, pink, red, lavender, purple and white. After early January's damp cold snap, landscapers and their clients began noticing that the impatiens were dying. Now countless plants have been ripped out, costing homeowners associations extra thousands and even bigger money for a multimillion-dollar flower business that blooms when snowbirds visit.
The culprit? The impatiens were the victims of a disease called downy mildew that caused problems elsewhere in the United States last year and has been wiping out impatiens in Europe and South Africa.
The Gardens Mall replaced its impatiens with white begonias.
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