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Coleus is a great plant for an outdoor garden and is usually treated as an annual. This plant is grown for its beautiful leaf color rather than its flowers. Coleus leaves are a velvety texture and come in shades of lime green to forest green, pale pink to brilliant magenta, reds, browns, and white.
The leaf edge may be scalloped, and the margins can be a contrasting color. The leaves can be under an inch long to up to six inches. There are literally hundreds of coleus varieties to choose from.
Coleus does not like the full sun. It is the perfect plant for the north side of the home or any area that only has indirect light. A little early morning sun will be tolerable but don’t plant coleus in the direct sun. This trait makes coleus an invaluable plant in the outdoor shady garden, but it also makes coleus a great houseplant.
Grow Vegetable Seeds Indoors TodayGrowing coleus indoors is not particularly hard. It is a forgiving plant for the casual indoor gardener so long as you take care of these fundamental growing techniques, including:
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Coleus can flower but if you allow the flower to remain on the plant, it will signal to the plant that it is time to put its energy into seed production and your coleus will probably die after going to seed. Simply pinch off the flowers that appear and your plant will live for years.
Shop Coleus Seeds For Your Indoor GardenAnother opportunity you will have if you bring your coleus indoors for the winter is to propagate new coleus plants through cuttings. In spring, around the time you are starting vegetable seeds indoors, take cuttings from the original plant.
Remove a 3-4-inch-long stem tip that has a minimum of three leaves. Look for a leaf node and cut about a quarter of an inch below the node. Remove any leaves from the stem at the lowest node where roots will now develop. You can place the cutting in a jar of water to root and then pot in soil after the roots show.
Another method is to pot each cutting immediately in its own small pot filled with moist soil. This will give you many new plants for your outdoor garden once it is warm enough to transfer outdoors.
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Coleus will benefit from a spring pruning as it can get leggy. This means the plant will develop long branches rather than a full bush form. Each time you prune the coleus, whether you use the cutting to propagate new plants or not, the original plant will be encouraged to grow new growth from the nodes on the remaining stem. The result is a fuller, bushier coleus.
Growing coleus indoors is not only possible, it is actually fairly easy to do. Take advantage of this gorgeous plant to augment the look of your indoors for years to come.