Old-fashioned houseplant type Busy Lizzie

[mairead]

I have been looking everywhere for a cutting of the very old-fashioned busy lizzie, the type with the tall watery stems and the smallish pink or possibly red flower, for a garden friend in London.  He was kind enough to answer a request for such a cutting from me on UK Exchange on a garden forum some years ago(www.gardenweb.com),  and then he lost his own and now I have lost mine and he would love to have a cutting. This particular type was usually grown from cuttings, rarely from seed.  I have lots of different things I could exchange for a cutting, if there is any hope at all that anyone has one.  Thanks for reading this,
Mairead

[PeterT]

Is this an Impatiens, or a Tradescantia, or the plants I know as Wandering Sailor? (I get their names mixed up)

[mairead]

Oh Peter, thank you for pointing that out - I should have said it's the old fashioned impatiens. 

[PeterT]

Depending on exactly what type you are after, they are sold in garden centres by the million here. Most of these bedding types are hard to over winter in Britain without heated glass or  a house which is kept relatively warm.
There are also hardy Impatiens, eg I omieana, as well as annual ones (such as "Himalayan Balsam"- much hated by some) and exotic species such as the "Parrot Plant"

[mairead]

Thanks again, Peter.  It's the very tall Impatiens, it gets to maybe two and a half feet sometimes.  The seed-grown ones are the bedding ones, isn't that right, which tend to grow not more than about eight inches or so and in a spreading form.  This tall type was grown everywhere as a houseplant about forty years ago; the flowers tended to be quite small, either pink or red, and the stems were very watery in appearance and thicker than the bedding type.  The leaves would resemble the parrot plant's leaves and the plant habit would be similar.

[PeterT]

I walleriana or I tinctora?

[mairead]

Impatiens wallerana is apparently the name of the old lanky Busy Lizzie.  It was known as Patient Lucy in the U.S.

[David Nicholson]

Am I imagining it or did I read somewhere that the traditional Busy Lizzie is about to disappear from cultivation as a result of virus? Maybe it was in The Garden?

[Roma]

I believe the bedding type Busy Lizzies were devastated by mildew in some areas last summer.  Thomson & Morgan are not selling any this year.  Other bedding plant sellers are warning people to be ready to spray for mildew.  I usually grow a couple of pots at my back door facing north with only a little sun early morning and evening in midsummer.  They have been attacked by vine weevils, rabbits, deer, slugs but not as far as I've noticed by mildew.  They claim the larger growing New Guinea types are not affected. 

[PeterT]

They sufferd in the recent dry summers in Derbyshire. Best facing north here, along side tuberous Begonias and potted Lillies.
Do Dibleys nursery keep any?

[Maggi Young]

Am I imagining it or did I read somewhere that the traditional Busy Lizzie is about to disappear from cultivation as a result of virus? Maybe it was in The Garden?

Roma is correct ......

B&Q and T&M pull Busy Lizzies over downy mildew fears ......
B&Q will not sell Impatiens walleriana this year because of the increased risk of downy mildew in the plant.

[PeterT]

I got very upset when Rhododendron powdery mildew arrived and we lost some of my favorite cinnabarinum Rhododendrons, (some ex Willy Buchanan).
I got no sympathy - I was just told that the growing Delphiniums in the UK had been domed by mildew, they were still around, and so would the Rhododendrons be, AND THEY ARE!