Coleus is a perennial but it can't take cold temps. Removing the blooms has no effect on its' life, just cold temps. You can bring it inside for winter to save it if you want. I have the best results when Coleus is near a sunny window for winter.

You can keep coleus going indefinitely....it IS a perennial, just not a very cold tolerant one. In Victorian times, it was a very popular and often long lived houseplant. Folks often remove the flowers because they distract from the foliage effect, really the reason why most grow this plant.

The brighter the light you keep it in, the better the leaf coloring will be but avoid direct sunlight.

Coleus is an annual plant

==>> when you start your premise with an incorrect presumption.. its ll down hill from there ...

in its native range.. its a perennial.. as noted above ...

it is grown in cooler climes as an annual ... and is rather cheap..because it roots faster than rabbits multiply.. so its cheap to make millions for sale ...

it can be grown indoors to winter over in colder zones .. but it get really ugly ... so what i used to do.. was to root some pieces in early fall .. take those indoors .. and about mid winter.. when they got real ugly.. id root some new pieces.. and throw the ugly one out the back door into a snow bank ...

and then in late winter.. i would root some more.. to get ready for putting them outside in late spring in my MI ...

so i really didnt keep one old plant forever ... but i did maintain the plants i liked ...

ken

Rainbows & Wizards are cheap, but individual, named Coleus aren't cheap. When I lived where there were stores that had named Coleus, they were at least $5 each, and that was a long time ago. I did find a place a couple of hours away that is an owner-operated store that had a few Coleus this spring. They were $8 for very small plants in 3.5" pots. "As an annual," that's expensive, but as a winter houseplant & summer landscape addition, it's a bargain. I'm always on the lookout for one I don't have that is not too orange.

I saw a few @ L's but they didn't have names. I got each different one they had but they aren't the show-stoppers that some of the more expensive ones can be if they have time to get big enough.

But agree, keeping a Coleus for years, for me, has never been about keeping the same old woody plant, but from taking cuttings before frost and keeping them in jars of water until spring. Cut stems can also be stuck in soil but I have an easier time storing the jars on a windowsill where pots won't fit. If Ken's Coleus was getting ugly, it probably needed more light.

My original attraction to Coleus was definitely the foliage, but the blooms are so beloved by bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds that I never remove them anymore except when plants are inside.

'Alabama Sunset'

'La Rambla' growing in about 8 hours of direct sun in AL just a few miles north of FL border.

Coleus in direct sun for 6-8 hours per day

yeah tiff.. nothing is really cheap anymore ...

also .... i should qualify my answer to indicate what makes them ugly in the house in my MI ... is the screaming forced air furnace.. which makes keeping good humidity in the house hard ... specifically on water hog plants like C ...

and after that ... proper light levels thru glass windows.. and again .... in my MI ... COLD window sills ... its a warm season plant.. that doesnt like sitting around in damp cold media ...

almost all plants called shade plants.. are just shade TOLERANT ... and light is not the primary issue ... the more sun you put things in.. the more the proper watering variable comes to the forefront ...if you can give it all the water it needs during the heat of the day in sun ... or shortly thereafter ... the better the plant will be able to cope with the sun ...

ken

Thanks for the link, advices and correction of my presumption. I presumed that Coleus is an annual based on info such as this: https://homeguides.sfgate.com/can-coleus-planted-water-69712.html

It said that Coleus is a tender annual outside the tropical zone, and will decline after flowering. So if I want to keep it as an indoor perennial, I need to pinch the flowers constantly or risk decline and dying. Right.

"So if I want to keep it as an indoor perennial, I need to pinch the flowers constantly or risk decline and dying. Right."

Nope :-) Plants don't change from being perennials to annuals simply based on location. If it is a perennial, it will always be a perennial and act like a perennial regardless of where it is grown as long as it is given the proper conditions to survive. Cold is the only factor that keeps coleus from being fully perennial - returning year after year - outside of a tropical environment. Removing the flowers will have no effect on the plant's health or longevity.

btw, homeguides, the spruce and various other websites are not reputable sources of gardening or horticultural information, so information received from these sorts of sources may not be (and rarely are) very accurate.

Agree. This is simply wrong. This quote from the link, "Once coleus has set seed, it dies back," is fake news.

And this, "Pinching flowers back as soon as they appear prolongs the life of the plant, but it also encourages production of flower spikes at an accelerated pace, eventually completing its purpose and dying back." Pure nonsense, every word. I know it's not true because I have seen otherwise, from many different Coleus plants over many years, and have the pics to prove it.

The blooms do make a mess when these plants are inside, so for that reason, I snip them off while they are inside.

But as I said before, this is a great plant to provide nectar for hummingbirds, butterflies, and bees. If other people don't think the blooms are attractive, I can appreciate that but I would not remove them from my own plants. Very few of my plants are in my gardens because they make pretty flowers. I'm much more interested in plants which produce nectar for the above-mentioned critters.

Anyone can repeat stuff they read elsewhere - as is clearly the case with the author of the linked article. Had this author bothered to gain any experience before writing the article, they would have learned this in less than a year. It's a mystery to me why anyone would write an article based merely on repeating someone else's info, not bother to confirm it, and publish it with their name attached. But now you know to not trust anything written by this author. By association extension, anything produced by the publisher and their entire organization can only be regarded with suspicion: https://www.sfgate.com/aboutsfgate/?_ga=2.92123354.11328771.1629732044-393084600.1629732044

So what would happen in a tropical zone if left alone? The coleus flowers, the flowers dry.... and next growing season it grows new branches from the old stems? Doesn't seem like the roots ever send up more branches, never seems to spread that way.

Seems kinda like a perpetual "weed" that might keep on living if it can, but doesn't re-sprout from the roots or get woody. Is there a name for plants like that? The branches may break off and grow roots where they contact the ground.

Also, tropical areas do not have a cold dormant/ killing season and a warm growing season. They may have a defined wet rainy growing season and a dry dormant/ killing season. Would coleus survive the dry season without humans taking care of it?

Coleus does get woody. It's a shrub.

Yes, branches do take root laying on the soil surface if there is enough moisture for a few days. I've seen this happen from tossing trimmings that didn't look worth keeping under the plants as mulch. That makes sense because stiffened branches break easily in a windy storm.

Good question about the dry season. I'll be happy to go find out if someone will sponsor this activity.

Here's a stem that I bent sideways while it was still pliable. The demonstration was that instead of a single tall stalk, all of the side branches took off and there was soon a much larger mass of stems. You can see that it is starting to lignify, and adventitious roots are visible.

If it is so easy to root in water or moist soil, I wonder if it can be grown indefinitely in a jar of water like Pothos and Lucky bamboo. It is easy to find green leafy plants, coleus is unique in providing colorful leaves as rich as flowers.

I don't know how long, but at least 5 months, long enough to escape inside from winter if needed.

But is it growing or surviving. There is a difference. For pothos and lucky bamboo. they will grow in size.

Try it and see what happens in the conditions you have to offer, if you are interested.

I've sprouted coleus in water, and it roots easily but didn't seem very happy. Maybe be right next to a sunny window would give it some energy.

Coleus does seem to handle hot humid summer just fine, pretty tough once established. Not something that suffers in summer heat/ drought like other "shade" plants.