No regular impatiens will be OK whether you had them last year or not. The downy mildew is IMpatien Downy Mildew and is traveling from garden to garden. I'll see if I can find the map. It traveled quickly last year from state to state.
When it attack around here, plants went down in 2 weeks. Hundreds and hundreds of them. I was dumbfounded until I asked around. Cornell did a study and put out its findings.
Nursery had no signs as they were using preventative measures but as soon as the plants were in the gardens, the problem spread from somewhere. I had the feeling whatever had been sprayed just wore off and the plants them selves came in with it. Who knows.
Recommended that all plants be pulled/dug up and thrown in plastic garbage bags, not into the compost pile. It was heart breaking. And a pain to plant all new plants (and quite an expense)
Anyway, no more impatiens for me.
