New! Beacon ‘Blue Pearl’ Impatiens
Fresh new color tones have been added to our famed series of disease-resistant Beacon impatiens. Introducing the ‘Blue Pearl’ featuring lavender-blue petals surrounding a violet center. This cool color tone is eye-catching and unique.
The Squak Mt. story of growing impatiens stretches back 50 years. At our founding in 1976 impatiens were an important part of our bedding plant growing program. Grown from seeds, there were several colors to chose from. They were typically grown in cell packs providing customers with multiple small plants in one pack, along with other summer annuals such as marigolds, lobelia and petunias. In those earliest years we were strictly a wholesale grower, and our crops were delivered to several grocery stores throughout the Puget Sound region for sale.
In 1980 we began selling our bedding plants to our neighbors here in Issaquah as we made our first venture into the world of retail nurseries. Over the decades we have grown millions of impatiens plants, and they have continued to be one of our most popular and important crops.
When you are fortunate enough to be a grower for 50 years, there are bound to be a few crisis. Around 2011 we began to hear about a strain of downy mildew that was devastating crops of impatiens in other regions. Over subsequent years the disease began to get closer to the Pacific Northwest. When it arrived on the Eastside, it frequently wiped out entire plantings of impatiens in many customers summer gardens. We quickly began highlighting other shade loving summer annuals, but the loss of our traditional impatiens crops was very disappointing.
In 2020 we introduced the new line of Beacon impatiens which plant scientists in the United States and Europe had urgently developed. The Beacon series is highly resistant to downy mildew and allows gardeners to enjoy planting masses of impatiens in shady garden beds and containers trouble free. Once again impatiens are an easy to grow and very colorful addition to your garden.
The color palette was very limited for the Beacon series six years ago. Each year new colors have been introduced. For 2026 we are pleased to add the all new Beacon ‘Blue Pearl’ to our lineup.