Colourful Coleus

Very good morning Friends!

Today we are going to get acquainted with a very simple and extremely beautiful plant.

Identification

These plants have bright coloured foliage with cutting patterns along the edge of the leaves. Yes, you guessed it right! I am talking about Coleus. These plants belong to the mint family and have square stem and opposite leaves just like other members of the family. These plants have spikes of tiny blue, white or pink flowers.

Temperature and Placement

coleus is a great choice to fill your garden with beautiful bright colours. They may be planted in a pot or ground as standalone bush to brighten up any boring corner of your garden or may be used as edging plant to border your garden area with a combination of many shades and hues of pink, green, magenta, cream, beige and purple by planting several plants in a row.

Coleus stays happy and healthy in water too. Their white hairy roots floating in water inside a glass jar with colourful foliage peeking out is really a delight to the eyes. This jar will instantly turn any dull window into a gorgeous corner.

Light

These plants are native to the archipelagos of Southeast Asia; the land around the equator covered with dense rain forests. These forests are second only to the Jungles of Amazon in producing Oxygen for the Earth to breathe. This place remains hot and humid all the year-round.

Hence, Coleus love being placed in moderate to full sunlight according to their variety. Colours of foliage change as per lighting conditions too. Leaves are most brightly hued in places with mild sun and full brightness. In places of complete shadow, leaves turn into yellow and eventually fall. In winters, when it snows or frosts, keep them in shade.

Water Needs

Coleus like to get regularly watered. Their soil or potting medium must never be completely dry. They need to be watered daily in the summers and in two-three days during winters.

Some Other Things to Remember

There is no need to make special efforts to keep them happy. If you want to create a dense plant with lots of leaves, keep cutting the growing tips of branches.

If you like tall plant with big sized leaves, cut extra branches from the nodes and let it grow naturally

Cut the spikes of flowers as they appear as they consume lots of energy of the plant in making seeds. If you like these little cute flowers or want tiny little young saplings growing from seeds just add some fertilizers as the plant needs it most during this time.

Propagation: 3 Ways

When the Coleus plant becomes old, its lower leaves fall off and remaining leaves are clustered at the crown. Plant loses its shape and beauty eventually. When this happens, cut about 6 to 8 inches of the healthy branches, pluck discoloured large lower leaves and place it into the soil so that bottom 2-3 inches of the branch remain covered with soil. After a week or so, new roots will grow and the young plant starts anew. This will also increase the number of plants and new fresh plants will grow in place of the old distorted plants.

These cuttings of branches may also be planted in water too. In fact, I prefer this method more than any other. For this, their bottom end will have to be kept immersed in water for about 2 inches. If the temperature is not very cold, new roots will be seen emerging within 4-5 days only. Now you can take them out and plant them in the ground or if you like it that way, leave them in water.

Apart from branches, these plants may also be grown from seeds. When it grows a little, flowers appear in the panicles at the upper end of the branches. Seeds are formed from these flowers only. When the Manjari is ripe and dry, pluck it and store it for future use in a dry place. Simply sprinkle these seeds on the moist ground whenever you want to grow them. Within a few days, tiny little plants will be peeking out of the soil.

That's all you need to know about these low-maintenance plants. With little effort in pruning and cutting your garden will always be full of colours.

If you have any other questions regarding these, please do ask in the comments. And please, if you like the article or have any suggestion abou anything about “Paudhayan”, do tell us in comments.

Next week we will meet another unique plant. Until then Goodbye!