Some plants have to wait for flowers to become colourful. Others, like this coleus, don’t. Purple, bright pink and cream splashes and veins do their best to crowd out the lime green, creating a bouquet on every leaf. Some varieties actually do flower very well, but for me, the tall spires of salvia-like flowers merely gild the lily… er, make that gild the coleus.
It’s a pity that this healthy-looking plant turns to greyish-brown mush soon after the first touch of frost explodes its cell walls. Far too big to drag indoors, it has to take its chance.
On the plus side, just about any part of it roots readily in water at the leaf joints, my sweetheart tells me.
Susan Rushton 
Very pretty leaf
It’s interesting to be able to see the pattern developing from the leaf-shaped splash on the smallest leaves to the multicoloured effect on the largest ones.
Yes such beautiful leaves 😊
Once they start to bloom, it is difficult to convince them not to! I try to keep the flower spikes pruned off to favor foliar growth, but there are times when it really wants to bloom, especially when it gets old. It helps to stick cuttings in around mature plants to replace them s the older plants decline.
This one is looking a lot more sorry for itself now even though it was temporarily pulled inside, despite being too big, before the snow fell.
Love ’em and have them on my porch every summer. They really brighten our shady yard.
They are one of the first plants I remember, together with a fleshy type of succulent and what I called ‘leg dancers’ (fuchsias).
Great photo as usually and perfect colour combination – magenta and green.
Thank you – it’s a very striking plant.
“A bouquet on every leaf” — I like that. I’m indebted to coleus for all the times it has livened up garden shade. Coleus makes me look good!
One of the few things that we’re OK with if they jump out of shrubs?
There are some really attractive ones around now. We had a lovely fiery Orange one this year.
That sounds lovely.