anything that blue is fantastic for me.. and great time of day to take the pic

ken

I have zero experience with this plant but wanted to say yours looks fabulous! What a color! And cool piece of garden art/planter box too.

:)

Dee

I've grown Browallia and if I were starting seeds every year, I'd probably use those. I had a great experence with them in my containers.

I have tried to grow them from seeds this year. On my fourth attempt I think so far. The seedlings have the smallest and most fragile cotyledons I have handled (and I have handled as small as torenia and lobelia erinus). They just die off before true leaves emerge. Not sure if it's me, the seeds are subpar or they are just hard to start from seeds.

Wow that's a saturated blue! Looks great.

Did it come with any additional information on the label? I've grown B. americana which was from seed and will self-sow for a few years but i suspect yours is a named form of B speciosa since it's more compact and larger flowered. I bet getgoing tried a fancier version since americana was fairly easy.

Katob, I actually tried Americana!

Hello @katob Z6ish, NE Pa.

This is the exact one:

https://www.provenwinners.com/plants/browallia/endless-illumination-bush-violet-browallia-hybrid

That's fatastic!

I've grown Browallia

@prairiemoon2 z6b MA I am interested in hearing a bit more re your experience with this annual as I am thinking of using it more next year but this time in the ground.

How do you think it compares to shade loving impatiens walleriana (which I like very much) in terms of its requirements and performance?

Hi, I wish I could give you a lot of experience with it, but really I've only grown it once or twice. Only because I'm not a very consistent grower of annuals beyond what reseeds for me that I added years ago. I don't always get to the nurseries early in the season and actually when I did get there a lot more, I rarely saw Browalia 6 packs being offered.

When I did use it, it was in a container and I did really enjoy it. It was in a part shade location and it was easy, grew vigorously and kept blooming a long time. I kept noticing a certain quality of the color when the sun hit it. Very pretty.

I'm also not a grower of impatiens. I've probably bought them as bedding plants twice in 20 years. So can't help you there either.

I'd say Browallia is worth a try. Grow them both and see which you enjoy the most. At the least, they are a nice change of pace. I grow organically so beyond watering, I usually use organic seaweed fertilizer and find I am happy with those results.

Browallia speciosa is an old fashioned garden annual. My great grandmother grew it! It needs warm temperatures (70F and above) to grow and bloom well, they are especially sensitive to cool temps as seedlings. I have worked for a commercial seed company for many years and noticed recently that only Browallia americana seed was listed for sale in the catalog and not speciosa. When I did a search online checking the availability of speciosa seed all of the major seed companies had dropped it from their catalogs. I asked the owner of the seed company I work for why no one carried the seed anymore and he told me that there wasn't much of a demand for the plant so all of the breeders and distributers of the seed stopped producing and selling it. The only producer of B. speciosa is Proven Winners that offers a vegetatively produced variety as a growing plant usually in a 4 1/2" pot which is super expensive compared to plants grown from seed. I have always liked how speciosa grows and blooms, americana is much more upright and tall, it has considerably smaller flowers and it is not as showy but the seed of it is still available. If you get seeds of Browallia now or in the future it is americana because speciosa is only available as a growing plant. I wish someone out there in GW land could prove me wrong!

I've grown browallia many times -- it's a great annual. Years ago I grew it from seed (Troll series) but as noted above can't find seed anymore. What was weird about it is they would germinate and grow under the lights but very slowly, were always puny runt seedlings when I started the hardening off process, and once outside bam! they grew like crazy. My other seedlings didn't behave that way -- never could figure that behavior out. For a while couldn't even find them in the nursery, but the last few years the Proven Winners ones have been everywhere, so I've purchased. Hopefully, the Proven Winners will spark a renewed interest in them and the seed will once again become available. Mine have always been shades of purple, not blue like your pic.

I have certainly tried it, failed, didn't bother again.

I don't lose any sleep buying these annuals as "instant" plants.