Coleus
Non-stop color for the summer garden
Many gardeners are looking for bold color in their landscapes or containers, and they often think flowers are the best way to get that pop of color. But plants like coleus also give non-stop color with their striking leaves.
Coleus is a beautiful landscape plant prized for its colorful foliage, which comes in shades of green, yellow, pink, red, orange and maroon. These versatile plants can be used in hanging baskets, containers on patios, or in landscape beds. Coleus is a heat-tolerant, durable annual that has very few disease or insect problems. These plants, which are native to Malaysia and parts of Asia, can really thrive in your Florida landscape during the summer while providing you with interesting foliage.
Characteristics
Coleus is hard to kill and easy to propagate, making it a wonderful choice for gardeners at all levels of experience. Coleus varieties come in such a wide range of colors and heights any gardener is likely to find a one that fits their aesthetic.
Planting and Care
Traditionally, most coleus plants have grown best in partial shade. However, there are now many new varieties — some developed by the University of Florida — that thrive in full, hot sun. Check the specifics for your coleus variety before planting to make sure it’s in a space where it will receive the correct light levels.
Coleus plants do best in well-drained soils amended with lots of organic matter. Any balanced fertilizer for bedding plants can be used to improve your coleus’ growth. Soil for these plants should be kept lightly moist at all times; mulching around your plants helps conserve soil moisture.
In the past, coleus plants benefitted from frequently pinching back the growing stems of young plants. This pinching encourages dense foliage growth — after all, foliage growth is the goal of planting coleus. It’s also best to remove flowers, as doing so appears to keep the plants from going to seed and declining. New varieties developed at UF have been selected for prolific lateral branching and late flowering, so they don’t need as much maintenance.
Propagation
It’s easy and affordable to turn one coleus plant into many by taking stem cuttings. Start with a healthy, disease-free plant. Use a sharp, clean knife to cut off a two- to six-inch section of stem. Trim the stem a half-inch below the bottom-most leaves and remove those leaves. Then just put the stem in moist potting soil or a sterile media like vermiculite and put it in a shady spot for a couple of weeks until the cutting forms roots.
Once your cuttings have a healthy amount of roots, transplant them to a loose, rich potting soil in a larger container or plant them in the landscape. This technique can help overwinter coleus in colder parts of the state.
For more information about growing coleus and other landscape plants, contact your county Extension office.
Also on Gardening Solutions
More from UF/IFAS
- Coleus x hybridus, Coleus–Ask IFAS
- Florida Foundation Seed Producers, Inc: Coleus Cultivars
- Florida Plant ID: Coleus
- UF Coleus Breeding Program–UF/IFAS Horticultural Sciences Department
A Note on Names
Readers might have noticed that we haven’t listed the botanical name for coleus. As is common in taxonomy, there’s been some disagreement on this plant’s “official name.” The most current name accepted is Coleus scutellarioides. But you will find this plant also referred to as Plectranthus scutellarioides, Solenostemon scutellarioides and even by a very old name, Coleus x hybridus. For a very deep read on the latest proposed name, see:
Paton AJ, Mwanyambo M, Govaerts RHA, Smitha K, Suddee S, Phillipson PB, Wilson TC, Forster PI, Culham A (2019) Nomenclatural changes in Coleus and Plectranthus (Lamiaceae): a tale of more than two genera. PhytoKeys 129: 1-158. https://doi.org/10.3897/phytokeys.129.34988