Put them inside and get a grow light. You can get a fluorescent one or an incandescent. They won't bloom, but you can keep them alive that way. (And start an indoor winter herb garden to boot!)

The hanging pot of geraniums from my mom's lamppost never faired well after summer. I always felt sorry for it. All dried-up and shriveled. Same thing happens to me by January, come to think of it.

My experience has been that it's really, really hard to keep impatiens from getting leggy and straggly in the house. Even though they're shade plants, they're still (in outdoors shade) getting an amount of light that's difficult to duplicate indoors.

So although you *could* keep them alive, they're likely to look a bit depressing. I'd say have a nice moment of remembering all the pleasure they brought you over the course of the summer, and then consign them to the earth (or, rather, the compost pile).

I'm going to echo katallison. Impatiens start getting very leggy and unnatractive. In my opinion it's best to start fresh each year.

Mudpuppie's idea is a good one, but I'm the supremely lazy sort that would not bother with this.

If you weren't having a chance of frost in two weeks I'd give them a dose of dilluted liquid fertilizer and enjoy them till they croak.

I wouldn't make a heroic effort to save them either. What I would do is cut them back to about two inches above the earth and put the baskets in the garage, shed, protected area, etc. They may come back in the Spring - I've had pansies and a few other annuals do the same even after a fairly harsh winter.

If you saw any seedpods, chances are come spring you will probably have tons of baby impatiens growing under your porch and in the cracks and all over the place like weeds. I think it's also possible to make cuttings, if you really want to have some indoors for winter that you can replant in spring.

Thanks all -- I'm going to try Deborah's method and also start some cuttings, a la casarkos, and see where we are in the spring. Worst case scenario is I'll have to get some new six-packs and start over.