My wife was given a New Guinea plant in a hanging basket for Mothers Day 2007. That thing is about as pretty a plant that I have ever seen.. It is huge and is one flowering bugger!! Ok, my question. Those little footballs, when do you pick them off?? Do they dry up and shrink? I have never watched them long enough to see what happenes to them. I thought that they were the beginning of a new flower.. Do I pick them off, let them dry or pick them and directly put them into soil or in a paper towel and baggie to let them sprout? I took some shoots off the bottom edge around the main plant last night and poked them in a 6 inch pot and put a plastic baggie over them to see if they will start. They still looked good this AM.. I have read other places where sun, water, fert., and all sorts of special things to keep these flowers blooming. MY pot, (yes I am claiming it from my wife) is on an old picnic table under a shade tree. It sees sun about 2 hrs in the morning, the rest of the time it is in the shade.. We are located in SW Mo., zone 6 and spend winters in deep south Texas, zone 9 Will these things keep blooming all winter in south Texas? Everything else down there blooms all winter.. Thanks, hope to hear from someone.. Bill

It sounds like you plants are getting to much sun. These plant like bright like but not really lots of full sun. If you live in a cool summer climate than, yes they can. Living in a hot climate like mine they like shade and I think the same would be for you. To fertilize I would just use some pellets or you can do the liquid fertilizers.

I had a really tough time finding new guinea impatien plants in my area last year. I really like a couple of the divine variety colors and was able to buy plugs online this year. I've read that it takes approx 8 weeks from transplant to finish, but haven't been able to find specific instructions regarding how to transfer plugs once I receive them, size of pots, planting medium/soil, etc. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

NG for me used to be the only thing available at the nursery. Compact and Grande Sunpatiens and Bounce Impatiens as well are still only available at the nurseries. Unless it's just my observation, but when did the Big Box Stores started carrying ~more stuff~. It's my understanding though, at least for my location, the HD garden center does not control their inventory, but the growers *do* . Similar to the tool dept (on certain manuf), and HD just get's their commish.. Anyhow, just a interesting observation as I think from last year and this, some of their offerings were only things I would see at the nursery. Quart sizes of Sunpatiens. Not alot of color variety of compact/grande series though. However, they seem to have boatload of New Guineas in every shape and form. Qt containers, hanging planters, round pre-mixed ready to go planters, 8" pots, etc, etc. ----Any of course, racks after racks of IW, even though most reputable nurseries do not sell them, due to DM---