By Kris Gasteiger
In my back
yard, I have a patch of Impatiens. Not the kind you buy at the home center or
nursery, but the native, wild variety, Impatiens biflora (I. capensis) or
Spotted Jewelweed.
I treasure this plant. It grows about four feet tall and
forms a rather dense thicket in the corner of the backyard under the Dawn
Redwood. In August, it begins to flower with lovely spotted orange flowers. The
flowers aren't exactly showy or numerous, but they do provide a bit of bright
color in a shady corner. Jewelweed will flower almost until the first frost,
when it then collapses and dies. I let the plants compost in place, ensuring
that I'll have a good seed bed for the next season.
This Impatiens doesn't seem to be affected by the Downy
Mildew that is making growing the bedding varieties (Impatiens walleriana
cultivars) so iffy these days. When I worked for the City of Bowie, MD, I used
to grow the bedding variety in beds throughout Bowie. The last couple of years,
I wasn't even able to get them from the nurseries, the nurseries couldn't grow
them due to the mildew problem.
Anyway, this Spotted Jewelweed... One of the reasons I love
it is that it attracts our native Humming Bird, the Rubythroat. I'll often see
the leaves trembling in a small area of the Jewelweed patch. Looking closely,
I'll find a Rubythroat sipping nectar. The breeze off the birds wings causes
the localized trembling of the leaves. Delightful! Large bees are also visitors
to Jewelweed's flowers. I've especially noted Carpenter Bees and Bumble Bees visiting.
These are great pollinators for the Squash and Tomato blossoms.
Spotted Jewelweed has a yellow-flowered cousin, Yellow or
Pallid Jewelweed (Impatiens pallida),
which grows in the same conditions as Spotted Jewelweed. While I don't
have this one in my garden, I've seen it in moist shady places around Bowie. It
too is a Hummingbird and Bee magnet. Good to have to encourage pollinators to
visit your garden.
Jewelweed is also useful as an anti Poison Ivy wash. You can
take the very watery stems, crush them and use the pulp to wash your skin where
you have been exposed to Poison Ivy. It will even help a bit with an
established Poison Ivy rash.
The seeds of Jewelweed are edible, though little worth the
effort, other than for a nibble as you are out in the yard. Cup you hands around the pods and let them explode,
catching the seeds if you can. They are tasty, but its hard to get very many.
Jewelweed is a beautiful plant to have in a shady, moist
corner of any garden. It will self-seed and come back every year, but is easy
to weed out when it jumps its bounds.
About the Author
Kris Gasteiger gardens in Bowie, MD. Kris edited Bowie Crofton Garden Club's newsletter and wrote articles for it under the
Green Man monicker for about seven
years. He can be reached at darkamber@aol.com.
This grows wild all over central Pennsylvania in the Appalachian Mountains where I grew up. I have seen it in a variety of shades of yellow and orange. Any advice how/when to collect seeds? I would love to habpve it here in Northern Va but don't know how well it would grow given our hot dry summers.
ReplyDeleteYou should be able to find Jewelweed growing along stream banks and other moist areas. To gather the seeds, carefully put a paper bag around a branch with ripe seed pods and shake it. The ripe pods open explosively and the seeds fall to the bottom of the bag. I don't know if the seeds require stratification, but if you scatter them in a prepared bed, they should grow next season. Keep the evenly moist as spring comes on...
ReplyDeletePlants like this one are helpful to have in your garden. It's good to know what they are used for so you can act quickly if you come in contact with something that contains urishol.
ReplyDeleteAccording to this article, jewelweed has not been demonstrated to be an effective treatment against urishol rashes caused by contact with poison ivy/oak. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9249283
ReplyDeleteIt sure looks pretty though!