Posts Tagged ‘Coleus’

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How to Propagate Coleus

October 27, 2010

One of my favorite plants is coleus. As annuals, coleus die after one season, usually from the first frost. However, coleus are easy to propagate. With a few simple steps and little care, you can have a whole flat of coleus to plant outdoors next spring. Here are two methods to propagate coleus, and most any type of cutting.

Material for First Method:

  • Pony packs or 1” pots
  • Sharp snips or razor blade
  • Rooting hormone
  • Starter soil
  • Drip trays 

Note:  If you are reusing nursery pots, be sure to sterilize them inside, and out with a stiff brush dipped in one-part bleach to nine-parts water, rinse thoroughly with water. Always sterilize cutting tools before trimming. This will help eliminate any possibility of transferring diseases. 

  1. Fill pots with starter soil, wet thoroughly. You may have to stir the soil like cake batter to ensure that all of it gets wet.
  2. Select only healthy stems and cut them just above the soil.
  3. Cut stems into sections making sure each has two leaf nodes. Leave 2 inches of stem below the lower node.
  4. Remove all leaves except the top two. Do not leave any flower shoots.
  5. Dip the cuttings in rooting hormone just above the bottom node.
  6. Place the cuttings in pots filled with wet starter soil. You can plant 2-3 cuttings per pot about half-an-inch apart.
  7. Lightly push soil around cuttings just enough to secure it.
  8. Water well.
  9. Place indoors near a window with filtered sunlight.
  10. Keep cuttings moist, not soggy.

 

 Material for Second Method:

  • Sharp snips or razor blade
  • Room-temperature water
  • 3-inch pots
  • Jars  
  1. Fill each jar with water.
  2. Follow steps 2-4 in the first propagation method above.
  3. Place in jars by a window with filtered sunlight. Change the water daily.
  4. Once the cuttings have 3-inch roots (this takes about two weeks), transplant to 3-inch pots.
  5. Keep moist, and place in a sunny window.

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Summer Colors

July 27, 2010

Here are a few of my favorite flowers blooming in and around my garden this summer.

The flowers in the photo above include Salvia Blue, yellow Festival Gerbera Daisies, and pink Pentas. They rise from a small rectangle concrete planter outside a floor-to-ceiling window. Every season I fill the planter with colorful annuals, easily seen from inside the house. Normally, I choose flowers with a matching color in the petal or center. I have to say, I like the combination, especially the pop of yellow.

In my back patio, Coleus (Solenostemon scutellarioides) adds a mix of leaf pattern and color. No need for anything else as it would be too busy. A shade-loving annual, mine, however, gets part-afternoon sun. Even on triple digit days, it does well as long as I keep it watered.

Above, in the perennial garden, a volunteer grapevine has popped up between the potato vines and the Black-Eyed Susan (Rudbeckia fulgida), also a volunteer. It will be interesting to see what type of grapevine this is, and if it will produce.

 

On the other side of the garden is another Black-Eyed Susan with yellow centers (above). Purchased last year at Lowe’s, I asked the nurseryman for the plant’s name. (I hate it when there’s no label.) He said, “It’s a new Black-Eyed Susan but with a yellow center.” Hoping to find a label, I looked for them this year in several nurseries. No luck. I searched the internet for information. No luck. Maybe it didn’t go over so well. Unlike its sister, the stems aren’t strong enough to hold up the flower heads, so staking is required.

Tomorrow, I’ll share an oversized plant and veggie you won’t want to miss.

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