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Coleus grows best in the ground and is generally thought of as an annual. People grow this plant for its pretty leaves, not its flowers. Coleus leaves have a velvety feel and come in lime green, forest green, pale pink, bright fuchsia, reds, browns, and white.
The tip of the leaf can be scalloped, and the edges can be a different color. The leaves can be as short as one inch or as long as six inches. You can pick from hundreds of different kinds of coleus.
Coleus likes to be in the shade, so it doesn’t do well in direct sunlight. This plant does best on the north side of the house or anywhere with only partial light. A little sun in the morning is fine, but don’t put coleus in full sunlight. This makes coleus an important plant for a shady yard outside, and it also makes it a great houseplant.
It’s not too hard to grow coleus indoors. If you are just starting to grow plants indoors, this one is easy to take care of as long as you follow these basic steps:
Not having enough light is the biggest problem for most people who grow indoors, but coleus doesn’t have this problem. Most of the time, your plant will do well in a room facing east or north. The leaves can fade and lose their color if they are in direct sunlight for most of the day. They can even get burned. The plant will lose its leaves and look dull if it doesn’t get enough light.
Coleus trees like it when it’s between 65 and 75 degrees, which is also the temperature range most people like in their homes. Do not put the coleus near a window that lets in a lot of drafts, an outside door, or a heat or air conditioning vent.
Use regular potting soil to plant your coleus. Do not water the dirt right away after you water it. Before you water, the ground should be dry about an inch deep. Do not get water directly on the leaves; instead, use warm water. Coleus doesn’t have many problems with pests, but if you water it too much, the roots can die. Still, coleus does like it when it’s damp. Water some rocks and put them on a tray for your plant. It will like it.
You should only feed plants that are growing. Most flowers, like coleus, go into a semi-dormant state in the winter, when they don’t grow much new material. You should wait until spring to use half-strength fertilizer. If you want to see more leaves, choose a fertilizer with more nitrogen. Do not use fertilizer made for plants that bloom.
Coleus can flower, but if you leave the flower on the plant, it will tell the plant it’s time to start making seeds, and your coleus will likely die after sending out its seeds. Your plant will live for years if you just pinch off the flowers as they come up.
Another thing you can do with your coleus if you bring it inside for the winter is use cuts to make new plants. Get cuttings from the main plant in the spring, around the time you start veggie seeds indoors.
Take off a three- to four-inch-long stem tip that has at least three leaves on it. Find a leaf tip and cut just below it, about 1/4 inch deep. Take off any leaves that are on the stem at the base, where the roots will start to grow. You can put the cutting in a jar of water to help it grow roots. Once the roots start to show, you can plant the cutting in soil in a pot.
You could also put each cutting right away in its own small pot full of moist soil. When it gets warm enough, you can move these plants outside to your yard. They will give you lots of new plants.
Coleus can get too tall, so a spring trimming will help it stay short. This means that the plant will grow long branches instead of a full bush. The coleus will keep growing new leaves from the nodes on the stems you cut off every time you clip it, even if you don’t use the cutting to make more plants. This makes the coleus larger and bushier.
It is possible to grow coleus indoors, and it’s also pretty simple to do. Use this beautiful plant to improve the look of your home for many years to come.
Though coleus plants grow well indoors, they will do their best outside. These plants might do better if they are moved outside for the summer, depending on where you live. They will need the extra space before they can come back inside for the winter.
Coleus plants won’t do well if it gets below 60 °F outside, and they probably won’t make it through a frost either. Also, temperatures above 100°F can hurt them. Check the weather report first, and don’t take your coleus outside until the temperatures are consistently in a good range.
When it comes to location, coleus plants do best in partial sunlight. However, it’s important to give your plant time to get used to the sun after keeping it inside for a long time. First, put your plant outside for an hour or two a day. Then, slowly move it outside for the whole day.
Also, remember that you will need to water your coleus more often when it’s outside because it will probably grow faster and the sun and wind will dry out the dirt faster.
When the temperature drops into the 50s at night, you might want to bring your coleus inside. A hard frost could kill the plant, but a few nights below 60°F won’t. Before you bring your coleus back inside, make sure you check it carefully for bugs that were outside.
A lot of people agree that coleus plants are some of the easiest to grow from seeds or cuttings. Coleus plants grown from clippings will be exactly the same as the parent plant. Plants grown from seeds, on the other hand, will be very different from the parent plants.
There may be mealybugs, aphids, or spider mites on your plant from time to time. Soak a pad in rubbing alcohol and wipe the bugs off the leaves with it. You can also spray the plant with water and soap that has been dampened, or you can use a natural insecticide like neem oil on the plant.
Coleus is easy to grow from seeds. Since their seeds are pretty small, all you have to do is sprinkle them on top of seed starting mix. Keep the mix damp and warm, and then wait for the seeds to sprout. You can move the seeds to pots with regular potting soil once they are a few inches tall.
Coleus leaves don’t like getting wet, but either way will work. When you water from above, make sure the leaves don’t get wet. If not, you can water the plant from the bottom to keep the leaves dry.
