Written from the home-garden experience of Shami, who has grown plants for 8+ years in Malappuram, Kerala. All photos are our own.
Chinese balsam is a great plant for keeping a garden beautiful. I plant it along the borders of my garden, and it makes them look very good. It is a seasonal plant, but if you take care of it, you get healthy plants and plenty of flowers. There are many varieties, and the flowers come in two forms, single-petal and double-petal. I have both. The care that matters most is something people don't expect: the potting mix, because it decides how you water.
A quick note on the name: Chinese balsam is what I call this plant, so that's the name I'll use here. Botanically, Impatiens chinensis is a slender wild annual from India and China. The flowers in my photos look like the garden impatiens and balsams sold in nurseries: bedding impatiens (Impatiens walleriana, which includes double-flowered forms), New Guinea impatiens (Impatiens hawkeri, the ones with bronze-tinted leaves), and rose balsam (Impatiens balsamina, a double-flowered garden balsam). If you go shopping, ask for "impatiens" or "balsam" as well as "Chinese balsam".
Watering depends on your potting mix
The main care for this plant is watering. It needs water every day, but if you give it more than it needs, it isn't healthy and the leaves turn yellowish. How often you can water depends on the potting mix you make, so here are the mixes I know and what each one means for watering.
Whichever mix you use, it must be very loose, so the water flows through easily. If the mix turns waterlogged and muddy, the plant won't be healthy, and it will dry out easily.
Mix 1: soil and lake sand
Just soil and lake sand. If you can't get lake sand, M-sand (manufactured sand) works too. You can add a little fertilizer, but keep the proportion very small: bone meal and neem cake are the two I'd add. With this mix you can water daily and there will be no issues.
Mix 2: coco peat only
You can also use coco peat on its own. If you do, be very careful with watering, because there is a high chance of fungal infections. Water only once in 4 days.
Mix 3: the one I use and strongly recommend
Soil, lake sand, perlite and vermiculite. This is the safest of the three, and it's the one I use myself. It also holds up better in the rainy season (here in Malappuram, that's roughly June to September).
When you buy one from a nursery
Every nursery pot I've bought has a small pot inside it, with a net around it. The nursery uses that small plastic pot to get the roots growing properly, then places it into a bigger pot and sells it in the bigger pot.
Once I bring one home, I change both the soil and the pot. The nursery soil is a bit hard and sticky, and that makes it difficult for the new tiny plants to grow beside the parent plant. This is the opposite of what I do with hibiscus, so don't carry one plant's rule over to the other.
Sunlight: morning and late afternoon
Morning sun is best, from about 8 o'clock until 10 or 11. Late afternoon sun, around 4 o'clock, is good too. Heavy noon sun makes the leaves bend down. They straighten again in the evening, but it still isn't good for the plant, so keep it out of strong midday sun.
Don't go to the other extreme either. It shouldn't live in constant shade, or indoors. It needs bright light without much heat, and morning and evening sun give it exactly that.
Feeding: less than you'd expect
I go easy on fertilizer with this plant. When you make the potting mix, add vermicompost or cow dung, and only in a very low amount. After that, once every 15 days, I mix 1 spoon of NPK 19:19:19 into 1 litre of water and spray it on the plant. That spray is the only fertilizer it needs to flower more and stay healthy.
Pests and problems
- Bugs eating the leaves: 1 tablespoon of neem oil and 2 to 3 drops of dishwash liquid, diluted in 1 litre of water. I make this natural pesticide for most plants in my garden, and it gives good results.
- Roots drying out: sometimes the roots start to dry, and you can tell by one side of the plant looking ill or dry. I mix SAAF with water into a thick paste, cut away the part that is drying, and apply the thick paste on the cut. I also pour some SAAF around the bottom of the plant. This has given me good results.
- Black dots on the leaves: I use SAAF fungicide mixed in 1 litre of water and sprayed over the plant. This has also given me good results.
Propagation: stem cuttings, and the Jiffy method
For propagation I mainly use stem cuttings. Roots start forming at the nodes of the stem, so I cut just below a node, where the roots have already begun to form, and plant the cutting in a new pot with the potting mix described above.
That's the usual way, but I do it differently. I buy small Jiffy pellets from nurseries or online shops, and I plant the cuttings in those first. A Jiffy is a small cover with coco peat inside. It isn't plastic: it breaks down in the soil. Here is why I like it:
- The roots grow faster and stronger than in a plain pot.
- It keeps the cutting hydrated for about 4 days at a time.
- After 10 to 15 days there are plenty of roots inside the Jiffy.
- Then you plant the whole thing into a pot, Jiffy and all. There's no need to take it off.
It's an easy method, and very effective. I get good, healthy plants this way.
Get the potting mix right, and the rest of the care for this plant is simple.