On Coleus......I have bought, swapped and grown from seed. Over the years I have come to realize that only a few of them will not thrive in half day sun. I have found also that the catalogs and various other sources of data indicating weather preferences are not near to being gospel. Guess the bottom line is we try them. Right now in my garden all but one Coleus is growing nicely in half day sun 11AM - 2 PM sun. All but two of them were classed as shade lovers or semi shade. They evolved to be my Coleus by growing in full sun during the hottest part of the day. Over the years keeping only those that would stand the sun was my only method of selection. Nearly all of them came from friends pinching and me rooting the cuttings. They had names when they arrived. I make no effort to record who is what. They grow here or they are discarded. I have all kinds of brilliant and contrasting colored plants with just half a dozen or so different plants I hold over winter.
My growing of them has been irregular over the years. Maybe three times I had them in some number. Always they were started mostly from rooted cuttings and may have been called local no namers. Today the colors and contrasts available are mind boggling. If they will grow nicely in semi-shade much of the time they will be alright in half day sun. Move some around and experiment. You may be very surprised to see them do well where it was once thought they would not like to grow.
Show me your containers
I have a question---advice, please......
I have several pretty sun-coleus growing. None of them have gone to bloom/seed yet.
Would this be a good time to take tip-cuttings and root them?
This way--they would root---I would pot them up--still keep them outside to harden off and then bring them inside when the weather turns as established, little plants.
I have tried the water in a cup rooting, and had no luck keeping them this way through the winter....
We have some AMAZING colored Coleus at work---they are all now leggy and still on the table. Glorious colors! But I am NOT buying them! Hope to, maybe, catch them when they are being tossed and nip off (with Bell's permission) some of the tops to root......NOT holding my breath on this......
Thanks--G.
This is so colorful!!!!
Love this one too. The colors are much brighter--my el-cheapo camera just does not capture them all.....
Love this one too. The colors are much brighter--my el-cheapo camera just does not capture them all.....
doc--we cross-posted.....funny--on the same topics
This one was new to me this year....ALL speckled.....
Gita.......In lite violet type growing medium Coleus will root from a cutting in about three weeks. They are nearly impossible to not get very high marks on rooting from cuttings.
In Maryland you might be just a bit early starting now. All I do is start four weeks from average first frost date on the shady side porch. It can all be done inside too. My cuttings are small with only the tip of newest growth showing. Two leaves and the tip of the terminal growth is enough leaf surface. If I get caught by an early projected frost that year everything happens indoors. Keep the cuttings damp. I never tent them.
Gita........they are so easy that if you drop one on a damp rug you will have roots in the morning. LOL
Small data addition.............the damp rug only works if the puppy was not the maker of the spot.
doc---Thanks!
So---do you root them right into soil? NOT water?
I tend to favor the soil method--as water roots do not always transition easily to soil--unless they are no more than 1" long.....
Right?
Buying these potted and growing costs about $3+ a plant.....
a couple more!
This one is being "eaten alive" by my Rudbeckia!
I still have not had any ID on this plant! doc--would you know?
I had 3 of these from seed.....have no idea what it is.
Thanks again
edited to say that it is bigger now and more lobed...No blooms of any kind...Maybe it is just a weed?
This message was edited Aug 17, 2009 11:38 AM
Before this goes further let me state I am planning and drafting an article on just that. take late summer tip cuttings to save favorite coleus, begonai, pelargonium over winter, and a few other 'annuals' Just don't want ya'll to think I scarfed the idea from here LOL.
puppy spots LOL
Well there may be better amateurs here than you find hanging around most magazines and newspapers. So scarf as you will. It still takes a professional writer and good photographer with many resources to put the good looking articles together.
Many professional writers today are with little or no real experience. I caught and criticized a national magazine just recently. I may as well have jumpped of a cliff. The very dangerous issue was making green colored frozen fertilizer ice pops in your refrigerator with second hand ice cream sticks and that famous green product. The arthur suggested this was a good easy way to water and fertilize house plants. I thought it sounded like a good way to kill a kid or two. Aside from that they would look just like a frozen green tinted power drink. They never even thanked me for the alert. That is one problem with the real book or magazine. Once published it can not be changed.
That is one of the stupider ideas I've heard of from more than one angle. Sheesh. I would hate to be the employee reading your comment/ complaint and knowing there wouldn't even be an acknowledgement of any kind.
I was told by a fellow food inspector with pharmacist husband, that those colored water fertilizers are very low toxicity. ( For what its worth)
Low toxicity............well maybe but did they also tell you that they are non-biodegradeable.
Therefore what goes where ever it goes in whatever strength never changes. Eventually in our case it lands in the Chesapeake Bay and then gets flushed out to well known biologically dead pockets or pools of quite some size in the ocean. Those poisons of low toxicity are gaining by volume and they started their journey in many backyards of America.
I appreciate your points. There are creeks here that never 'open' to human contact' year after year have dangerous levels of E Coli and look very sad. Too many people, not many volunteering to leave their high paying jobs, including us.
We were discussing at the time in terms of giving the food place a 5 point violation for unlabeled toxic item in food prep area, or not. One time I almost gave a 5 pointer for an unlabeled spray bottle, to have the waitress inform me "Its just diluted vinegar!! Works great on tables!"
Gita your post 6956619 is so colorful, I love it.
2nd lol on the puppy spots
Fertilizer ice pops, yep def sounds like an accident waiting to happen.
Gita..................Recognize this? Really a nice begonia.
Gita........second of the three babies you gave me. Moving right along. Thanks again.
Gita...............third one here. I am in process of making room for them inside this winter.
Awww, doc!
You sure have the magic touch!
For the small plants i gave you-- to have grown so well and tall--it is just amazing!
Can't tell you when, and IF, any of them will bloom----but with your luck, it won't be long!
Please be sure to post pictures when they do!
The Begonia will, most likely, outlive YOU--just take tip cuttings every year and start new plants. Let the Mama re-grow and so it will go into perpetuity!
XOX Gita
