What's so hard about finding coleus

13 years ago

I have a love of coleus, my parents always grew it, and I see ads for it in the local garden centers of all the big box stores, 6 pack and cheap like the rest of the annuals. I never find it though, lately my husband has been stopping off on his way home because it's just easier for him to pick up things when he passes it, but he can't find it either. Actually he said most of the plants at lowes, HD, walmart, kmart were unidentifiable because they were in such bad shape.

I just want some coleus! Do most stores around you have it? I'm not sure if it's just my local stores sucking or if this is regular. I'm looking for bright coleus types.

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Comments (6)

socks
13 years ago
I've seen them at my local nurseries,all kinds. How about starting from seeds?
grabmebymyhandle
13 years ago
Yea I see it over, all the box stores have it, many local nursuries, I have to resist the urge the to pinch the tips, they root with suck easy and in a week the plant look better anyways

Ill second the seed notion, order a pack they are cheap and usually have lots if variety!
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Marinewifenc
Original Author
13 years ago
I actually have some seeds, I am not great at growing from seed though, I'll give it a shot.

If others are seeing coleus I'm going to guess it's just my city, even wave petunias I could only find 1. I'll try going to a neighboring town or find out what day they get new plants in.

Are they really that easy to grow from cuttings? I thought about buying cuttings online.
Tiffany, purpleinopp Z8b Opp, AL
13 years ago
If you just started shopping in the past couple weeks, they might have just all been gone. Something they only seem to get in once in the early spring. They were in stores before the last frost hit, then few showed up, so I think a lot of those for this year, in this area, were zapped by frost the last few days of March.

Also, there's a downy (not powdery) mildew that's going around, wrecking Coleus. If it hit the supplier the BBS's near you use, that could be the cause also. I haven't bought any because all of the ones I saw had issues with some of the leaves. Not risking bringing it here with plants that I can see some kind of problem on, I'm sure the wind will bring it soon enough.

You might find/like some of these suggestions of alternatives although certainly not all look/behave just like Coleus. Something is better than nothing!
grabmebymyhandle
13 years ago
Super easy from cuttings, pinch the top and drop it in a cup if water in the window...

I'm not a seed person I live cuttings, but this time of year they are remarkably easy too, I'd just buy a bag of sand, get it very dry, and mix ur seeds in the sand, they are tiny, the just scatter the sand on open ground or in a flat of soil, prick out the bigger ones and plop em in dirt water and away they go, easy to get em up to size in a month or less too
Tiffany, purpleinopp Z8b Opp, AL
13 years ago
Just curious how the Coleus situation is going. Have you tried propagating? Found any interesting plants? Finally seeing some exuberant growth from Coleus this year, now that it's hot during the day, sticky and warm at night. Usually by this time I'd be working on round 2 or 3 of cuttings but just getting ready to start round 1.