Plant question

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LovelyLadyLux
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Plant question

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

Simple question and I'm thinking Horus or MD might know the answer......

Have you grown coleus? And do they typically over winter? Or ?

I quite love the foliage and saw one this past spring that was beautiful. Had it out front all summer and it grew well. Size the leaves shrunk down quite a bit from the HUGE ones it had when I bought it, it flowered profusely and I religiously pinched them off.

I've brought it inside and it seems to be shedding leaves daily - they're just slowly wilting, turning yellow to brown and falling off. All the buds on the ever producing flower stalks are also shedding buds.

Do you know - will this plant actually over winter inside? Or will it just continue to S L O W L Y and looks to painfully DIE?

In other words is it worth the effort to keep it or better to just suck it up and (ahem) deep six it?

Worth the effort in that will it actually live to grow again or are these short lived plants that have to be re-propagated yearly to keep them going?

I'm of a mixed mind about it cause it is taking up prime real estate in the living room by my chair sitting on the little table I rescued from the dump. It is getting as much daylight as I can give it but just wondering anybody elses experiences of keeping one of these alive?


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Re: Plant question

Post by Horus »

LLL. Coleus plants come in so many variations it is hard to say what you have. Some are perennials and others are best described as annuals and only good for the one year, most are sub-tropical so either a warn position in a sunny garden or indoors. The general rule for indoors is to pinch out the growing tips to promote bushiness or if bringing in from outside to cut them back. You can try to get some ‘softwood’ cuttings in the Summer if you want to keep the same plant type, if you try from seeds they may not come true to type. Coleus plant do not usually like direct sunlight they prefer shaded light and keep the soil moist at all times, but losing leaves may indicate it is being kept too dark or too cold. As I said so many variants of this plant to be more precise, maybe MD has a few more suggestions to add.
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Re: Plant question

Post by Mad Dilys »

I agree with you Horus - but if there healthy bit of plant that could make a cutting at this time, I'd have a go at rooting it in water in a warm light place and nursing it through the winter.

I'm always amazed at how well so many things root in water - I have friends who are Buddhists and they have a small piece of fresh plant growth on the table when they chant. Most of little cuttings eventually make successful new plants.
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Re: Plant question

Post by Horus »

I agree about the water for rooting MD, if my pot of garden Mint doesn't make it through the Winter I often just buy some sprigs of cut mint in the local store and put a couple of stems into a glass of plain water, they usually have good roots after a couple of weeks and can be potted on again to form a new plant. ;)
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Re: Plant question

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

Tomorrow in the daylight I'll take a photo to show you what I'm taking about. No idea if it is a perennial or annual. Am thinking possibly annual but it does have something of a woody stem and I can tell/could tell when I bought it that had been severely pinched to promote leaves etc.

When I bought it the leaves were a deep velvet purple, super large with bright green all around the edges. I put it outside on the table in essentially full daylight but no direct sun - the hostas and ferns do well in this area. And the coleus also seemed to like it there, flowered (hate the tiny bitsy flowers) profusely.

Brought it in about 2 weeks ago before it got too cold here.

Over the summer the deep dark velvet purple faced out to RED in the middle with the dark purple jogging about all around the outside of the now red area with still the bright green edges. I broke off a branch and shoved it into the aquarium and it easily rooted. I never got around to potting it up cause when I pulled it out of the aquarium I kinda broke it so rather than try again I tossed it.

I've mulled snapping off a few branches and shoving them back into the aquarium cause this plant is biggish and it looks like it is going to just slowly fade away. Not that I mind it succumbing in the living room I just don't like having to clean it all up as it keeps dropping bits and pieces of itself.

Will have to decide what I'm going to do with it. It 'was' a lovely plant but not too sure what condition it'll be in come spring sooooo hmmmm - to put it out of its misery or not..........probably give it another few weeks and then decide and will probably take a few cuttings then to see how they fare for further planting in the spring.
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Re: Plant question

Post by Horus »

Sounds like your only option is to cut it back severely and see if it regains some vigor.
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Re: Plant question

Post by Horus »

These images demonstrate the effect a bit of cold weather can have on plants in the garden. You may recall me posting this image of my Nasturtium patch on the 4th of November:
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At the time I said it would only take one slight frost to kill them off, this was today: :(
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The good thing is that they will certainly self seed the patch for next year. :up
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Re: Plant question

Post by Ruby Slippers »

That's sad, Horus! Still, look on the bright side. Get Christmas over with and Spring won't be far behind!
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Re: Plant question

Post by Horus »

Ruby Slippers wrote:That's sad, Horus! Still, look on the bright side. Get Christmas over with and Spring won't be far behind!
I am not really sad about it RS, it happens every year. They are wonderful plants with masses of flowers that start in the Spring and go all the way through the Summer, but once that first frost hits them .............. wet lettuce :lol:
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Re: Plant question

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

I planted nasturtiums all around the veggie garden along with marigolds. I'm hoping some of the nasturtiums will re-appear next spring. I'll be buying and planting lots more marigolds too. They seem to really work well for keeping the bugs away.

I'll decide the fate of the coleus probably this weekend and/or sooner or later - going to depend on how much it keeps dropping bits and pieces of itself off onto the table that I have to clean. Soon as I'm tired of constantly cleaning up it'll go - sooooo word to a wise plant - GROW and you'll live a LONG time here!
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Re: Plant question

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

This is the coleus. When I bought it all the leaves were dark dark rich purple. Over the summer they started to change colour and this is presently how it looks albeit it is dropping leaves daily and bits of flower bracts that I keep pinching off.

It was fully round and looked lush whereas now it had holes as parts of it are literally falling apart.

I've got it in the living room but am not terribly happy with this starting to be really bedraggled plant being in there. If I had a greenhouse it would be no problem it would be moved there but not too sure I want it living beside me as it slowly dies.

Interestingly the leaves are changing colour even more now that it is in the house. They're continually going lighter which makes me think it needs more light than it is getting. Unfortunately it is beside the window which is the lightest area of the house.

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Re: Plant question

Post by Horus »

Looking at the plant LLL I would say too dry and too dark :td
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Re: Plant question

Post by Mad Dilys »

Exactly Horus, though as I've recently found after a summer in a pot some of the compost growing begonias looked very dry on the top, even cracked in two cases but were actually too wet underneath.

I'm not very happy with the current "soiless" composts available and much prefer good old John Innes. :up

After thought: Some of us with bushy plants check the watering just by lifting the pot and checking the weight. As the plant weighs more and more it is possible to actually be underwatering as I've found with my Camellia pot - but bless her she's showing flower buds, so might have flowers for Christmas if I'm lucky.
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Re: Plant question

Post by Horus »

I couldn’t agree more about the composts of today, there are too many companies passing off all sorts of stuff as compost. To me the worst offenders are those claiming that their product is using recycled materials, most are rubbish in more ways than one, the only good compost is the stuff you make yourself. All of the peat based stuff is pretty useless at holding moisture, it is either too wet or dries out at the top and so does not take up moisture easily again afterwards, as you say MD a good soil based one like the John Innes is much better albeit more expensive to buy.
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Re: Plant question

Post by Mad Dilys »

My New Year Resolution is to use up the few bags of General Purpose Stuff I have, and then use just John Innes - except for plants with Special Needs. After all there are various recipes for making John Innes composts for use with most stuff from seedlings to mature plants.

I might do a trial with Perlite too. Funnily enough, I was going to use Perlite in my Egyptian garden - until I had nearly 100 tonnes of FYM delivered from the farm. Yes that's not a typo 100 tonnes. It does weigh pretty heavy, but it was enough to give my garden of about 100m x 100m a nice thick layer with a pile about 5ft high and 10ft across over.

Perlite is made in Egypt and much cheaper than the UK but I needed something to improve the soil texture when I first got the garden. The soil is basically silt and while it was just growing trees and shrubs there was no problem. Of course when I wanted to grow crops there were some difficulties. ;)
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Re: Plant question

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

Thanks for the conclusions on the plant. It IS watered. Not sogged down and not dry but just dying so I think this weekend when I have a minute I'm going to take a couple healthy cuttings and then deep-six the plant. As I keep looking at it I'm concluding that it probably is an annual that is now dying back S L O W L Y and there isn't really going to be too much I can do about it. It does get a fair amount of light as it is in a window but the leaves are essentially yellowing out to brown then falling off and after being out for most of today I'm home to another mess of tiny scattered about flower buds soooooo methinks its days are now done and it'll be Sayonara.

:up :up :up

We have more different types of garden mixes of soil here than you can shake the proverbial stick at PLUS a huge array of composts re: chicken, lamb, beef, mushroom (most of which are so low in any nutritional value they're useless).

In the good old days I used to use my own soil compost and threw in vermiculite and perlite and a small handful of peat & sand and mixed it all up. Each ingredient was more or less depending on what I was planting although right now I'm not too sure what or why I was using vermiculite for but if the plant was along the cactus lines I'd throw in more sand etc.
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Re: Plant question

Post by Mad Dilys »

I think you are right LLL about everything in your post. :up

I have the same situation with my beloved Mandevilla. I had so much pleasure from this lovely plant through the summer, it was worth every penny of the £22 I paid for it - I didn't look at the price or I might have hesitated before I got to the till. ;)

I admit I did stress it when I was ill a few weeks ago and missed watering it, :oops: but it seemed to have recovered. The lovely lush green leaves are very sparse now and still yellowing and dropping.

It's got light on three sides as it's in a bay window, but I have Venetian blinds so the light isn't ever blindingly strong. Now the heating is on the temperature is 20c or just above - 70F in old money I think. Before the heating went on full time I think the worst of the damage was done, added to the fact that the light is so poor here at this time of year with heavy cloud cover that frequently I have to put the light on at 2pm to be able to read.

Almost all the twining stems have died back - except 2 quite long ones. The longest died aback about a foot - still 4ft high though and with two tiny new shoots this week right at the tip!

Next to it I have the other Mandevilla which is short and had red flowers. Apart from persistent greenfly which seem to be spray resistant it's in fine form though resting.

Next year is going to be Mandevilla and Begonia year I think. :lol:
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