Question
I'm not sure which way you spell that. Mine come back every year and use to flower continually until the very cold weather. This year my plants have had slugs and ants. The ants won't go away and they are a very different ant from any I've ever seen before.  They are blk/brn and have a small redish color in the middle.  The move very fast, almost as if flying or jumping.  Some of them do have wings. We have sprayed them with 7 Dust and that worked for a while but now they are back. We put in slug bait and killed the slugs that were on the plants. Now however, the leaves have brown spots and it looks like entire leaves have been chewed off the stems.  They keep having the little flower buds but don't live long enough to bloom.  I was wondering if I should cut them all back to get rid of the long stems with very few leaves and maybe the buds will come back and finally bloom? I still have no idea how to get rid of the ants and would welcome any solutions.  If I cut them back now will they grow back this year to flower?

Answer
Impatiens balsamina and Impatiens wallerana are two commonly grown species of this incredibly popular houseplant (the most popular bedding plants in the country) that just happen to have Nectar Spurs on their flowers.  The sweet nectar attracts pollinators, but Ants like it, too.  There have even been sightings of Hummingbirds hovering over the flowers.

I cannot i.d. your Ant, as there are several thousand of these and that would be a good question for another AllExpert -- someone in the Insects department.  Make sure you tell them what part of the world you are growing your plants with the Ants, because not even an Ant specialist will be able to narrow down the field unless you do that.  A zipcode is even better.

That said, I do not believe the Ants are causing any damage to the flowers or the plant.

Sevin is a very strong poison that should never be used in the Garden by anyone.  Now that you have done that, and lived to tell the story, your Brown leaves sound to me like symptoms of a Fungus.  This is quite common, especially when you use strong chemicals like Sevin to kill Insects or Weeds.  Impatiens grow best out of direct Sunlight; this makes them prime targets for Fungal spores, which are normally held in check by competing Fungi and other factors that are suddenly wiped out by the chemicals.  Alternately, this might conceivably be a less common problem, a Virus attack, illustrated here:

http://www.umass.edu/umext/floriculture/fact_sheets/pest_management/insvtswv.htm...

If these Brown spots resemble the ones in the photo above, immediately remove all Impatiens that have these symptoms and put them out for Garbage Pickup (they should NOT be composted).

Brown spots are a separate problem from the big bites that were taken out of the leaves.  Those Slugs chew holes and cut out chunks of leaves to fill up.

That's the Causes.  Now for the Cures.

What you need to deal with this Fungus problem is beneficial Fungi and other microbes.  You had them until you used the Sevin.  Now you want them back.  You are probably not familiar with Compost Tea, but a good, healthy drenching of the Soil and Impatiens leaves with Compost Tea will jump-start the microbes.  I guarantee they will eliminate any Fungus on your Impatiens leaves, and keep it from returning next year even if you decide to grow Impatiens in the same spot.

And Organic Compost Mulch is the next best thing.  You can read an abbreviated description at the 'Yardener' website:

http://www.yardener.com/ControlWithNoFungicides.html

You can get a list of all kinds of possible Fungi specific to the Impatiens leaf here:

http://www.ipmcenters.org/cropprofiles/docs/ohimpatiens.html

but you do not have to i.d. the Fungus in order to treat for it.

As for the name of these flowers, it's simple.  Scientists named this Genus IMPATIENS (a Latin name).  But when the common folk went looking for them, they added a 't'.  You can see how easy that would be to do.  And then, along the way, people assumed them to be 'Patient' plants, which you will also find, while others stretched that to 'Patience' plants, and still others referred to 'Impatience' plants.  All of this boils down to the Impatiens you now have no idea what to call.  Welcome, my friend, to the club.