These cheerful-looking annuals are the most popular bedding plants in the world. These attractive shade annuals got their botanical name because their seed pods explode when they ripen, shooting their sticky seeds far and wide. Perhaps these annuals are impatient to reproduce. Impatiens are popular because they’re easy-to-grow and flower in shade all season. Available in many colors – red, scarlet, pink, white, rose and mauve – and in star patterns and bicolors with light colors inside the flowers and darker colors at the margins of the petals, impatiens comes in single, semi double or fully double flower forms. Impatiens grow about six to 24 inches tall, but their eventual height in your garden depends on moisture and nutrient levels, how far apart you plant them and how much sun they get.