PLYMOUTH, Mich. — The downy mildew fungus has spread enough in the Detroit area that it’s caused big nurseries to not offer impatiens starting this season.

That was the word from Jeff Jones, owner of Plymouth Nursery, last week. Jones typically plants about 30 flats of impatiens at his own home, but he said last year downy mildew ruined them. “They melted down” after about eight weeks, he explained.

The problem with the disease is the spores spread through the air and get into the soil. Technically, he said, what’s supposed to be done is the contaminated soil is to be removed, but “that’s not realistic. You can sell them, but you’d be doing your customer a disservice. We want to do our best by our customers.”

Jones said they knew downy mildew was a problem in impatiens the past several years in other parts of the country. He said the infected flowers may look pretty good at first glance, but when the underside of the flower is examined, there’s a real degradation of the plant material and eventually, the fungus kills the impatiens.

“Last year it had spread enough in the Detroit area that we knew it was going to be a real problem here,” he stated.

The big nurseries in the area – Plymouth, Bordine’s, Ray Wiegand, Farmer John’s and English Gardens – all agreed in the end it would be best for everybody if regular and double impatiens are not sold this year. Moreover, since the fungus gets into the soil, there’s a good chance that downy mildew will ruin impatiens for customers for the foreseeable future, not just this season.

“All of the big nurseries knew about it,” Jones said. “Everybody knows everybody in this industry.”

But it isn’t clear that downy mildew is destroying impatiens everywhere in the area. At Marvaso Greenhouses, for example, they are doing fine, according to Don Marvaso Jr., its president. Marvaso Greenhouses is located in Romulus, southwest of Detroit and southeast of Plymouth.

“We sell impatiens,” he said. “We had no downy mildew at any greenhouses. We sold some at our churches. We have not had any problems; none of them melted down.

“We stuck to the spraying and the spraying saved us. A lot of growers didn’t even spray last year. We’re spraying and I think it’s going to be okay.” Marvaso grows its own impatiens and is primarily a wholesaler.

Robin Rosenbaum, plant industry section manager at the Michigan Department of Agricul-ture and Rural Development, said the consumer’s decision whether to buy and plant impatiens this year or not is a personal one and also a function of whether they’re going to be available. “I’ve heard, too, that the greenhouses have banded together to not offer impatiens,” she said. “I don’t blame them. It’s going to be hard for consumers to spray their plants enough to really protect them. It’s a personal decision; it’s a gamble. You have to really love your impatiens to keep up with a spray program. I wouldn’t do it.”

For those who can’t find impatiens this season or who decide it’s best not to plant them this year, the Plymouth Nursery has some recommendations for alternatives … but none of them match up exactly with the versatile flower.

Jones said the alternative flowers that thrive in a lot of shade, for example, are not as colorful as regular impatiens, so people might be dissatisfied. Still, the nursery is recommending gardeners use New Guinea impatiens and SunPatiens, which are not affected by the disease. Other alternatives include begonias, coleus and vinca.