My coleus have been outside all summer. I pinched off the tips alot to encourage branching and it has worked well. I always pinch off all flower buds. It can be alot to keep up with since there are always some forming and I have many coleus plants.

Alright, I'll try pinching off the tips of these guys, though the largest one I may hack off half of it and root that portion as it is getting to rather silly levels of tallness.

And I considered placing these guys outside, but I unfortunately own a small army of chickens who, despite having 2 acres of green grass to pick through and eat bugs, love to destroy everything small and flower-like. Makes trying to plant anything a bit of a pain.

Coleus make very nice houseplants. 'Black Dragon ' may prefer a shady location outside, but to do well inside will need excellent light, even artificial lighting. Your plants are extremely etiolated.....leggy, stretched, not colorful.

Keeping them pinched and providing great light will allow your coleus to grow full, well branched, and colorful.

I'm growing "Jade " from the wizard series this year for the winter.

Yeah, I figured the lighting I have is a slight issue. There's a large bush outside my window which kind of blocks the sunlight coming in. I think I'll have to go trim that back this weekend, haha! Though I do have full spectrum lighting from my lizard tanks, I'm just not sure if that would be enough for the coleus.

Thank you for the tips though! I think I am going to cut my tallest one down and root the cuttings. I might have to take one of the cuttings outside and see how it fares against the chickens sometime, though. There's a planter in the front of my house that gets a good amount of shade during the day, used to have lots of nice flowers growing in it but then, of course, the chickens dug everything up. -_-

Sorry if I did post this in the wrong board. I wasn't entirely sure where to put it and I saw other people's topics on Coleus here.

Silver, this forum is perfectly fine! Most people post their coleus questions in here...let's face it, coleus fits into several categories.

Silver, this forum is perfectly fine! Most people post their coleus questions in here...let's face it, coleus fits into several categories.

Why isn't there a separate garden forum for Coleus plants (Solenostemon scutellarioides), since they are grown under different categories (i.e., annuals, houseplants, tropical shrubs, etc.), and for so many different purposes? It seems like no current forum fits it precisely.

My nickname was supposed to be partybrah- brah is slang for brother in Hawaii.

==>>>>God i hate when that happens... lol ...

you can ask to start a new forum ...

but ???s about such.. are not really all that common ...

in other words.. you might be sitting over there... by yourself...

but who knows ...

ken

Party, if you look what happens when people ask for a new forum for Whatever plant , you'll not ask for a separate Coleus forum. It would roll over and die, like so many others.

The very few coleus questions or comments are handled very well wherever they happen to land.

There are already too many forums.

Several people asked about starting a coleus forum, but I agree with Rhizo that there is not enough activity on the forums we have already. Questions on many forums sit for weeks or months without replies. That is no way to encourage people to increase their visits to GardenWeb. I'd even like to combine some of the forums, though that might get confusing.

How are your coleus cuttings/plants doing?

Martha

I use to always pinch off my coleus flowers until one day I saw a humming bird going to each little flower. Since then I allow my coleus to flower.

When I received my first coleus in 1995, the lady told me I could grow it indoors as long as I kept pinching off the new growth tips. Doing that enough times caused it to grow sort of a bonsai like effect. I got something kind of like a gnarly bush/ tree like thing. It was really pretty. People kept wondering what kind of plant it was and surprised to hear it was a coleus.

If growing them indoors you may want to try that. You can pinch them back pretty far, root the tips and pinch off the new growth as it happens. let each branch produce one or two sets of leaves, and them repeat. It's a fun project.

If you don't want to do that, then you'll want to increase the light. They grow very well under my fluorescent shop light/ wire shelf set up. A bit too well. I have to constantly water them and watch out for them drying up. (they quickly outgrow just about any container they are in.)

As far as colors go you'll see mostly the red/black base color of the black dragon indoors. The leaves will show nice toothing and may have some pillowy texture between the veins. If grown outdoors you may see some bright pink in the middle sections. The edges become more ruffled and create a real interesting texture. (I have some black dragon coleus indoors as I type. I started them in the late winter and aim to transplant them outside soon.)

These are just a few out of many seeds I planted.

Very nice, FOF!

Thanks. I'm especially excited about the tuberous begonias. It's the first time I've tried them by seed. (Non Stop Mocca Rose). I started with about 5 or 6, but out of those have only about 2 survivors.

It seems some root/ stem rot disease is taking them down one by one. The most recent casualty today. I hope the last two can make it just two more days before we are safe from near freezing. I'm worried about Tuesday's sudden forecasted dip. It came out of the blue. We seemed safe up till just a few days ago. But my seeds can't take being indoors much longer.

they may be growing like that because they have to much space I have this plant myself in a terrarium and they are bushy and feathery cause i had a top on them so the next time you pinch back put a cover on and see what happens