u/coleusguy64

Colocasia cultivar 'Illustris' in the background.

That's 'Illustris ' in the background.

I started planting the coleus in the ground in this bed on July 4th, so it's well before its peak, which will be in September. The coleus in the planters were planted weeks earlier, hence the size difference. The other tropicals and subtropicals either overwintered in place or were planted much earlier in the season. I'll post an update in September or October.

I discovered this today volunteering in a pot with a white fruited Nandina in my tree and shrub nursery. I'm already smitten! Lol.

This is Vern Ogren's cultivar 'Fiona. It often has three leaves per node, and on the branch pictured, a flower spike is emerging. The overall effect is almost like a flower.

The other photos are updates of the spirally arranged stem of the cultivar 'Kingswood Critter'. The spiral arrangement continued into the flower spike. The last two photos are of the same stem before it started to flower, and I posted those a few weeks ago. The hat in the photo was just to get my phone camera to focus on the spike ins instead of the background.

This planter in the first two photos is a study in orange: starting at the left and going counterclockwise are Klondike, Lin Lawson, Campfire, Lusty Rusty (a sport of Copperhead) , and Inferno at center bottom. The green trailing plant is Cuphea ignea, and it is pictured in close up in the third photo. Even though its flowers are very small, it is still attractive to hummingbirds.

These were photographed today in one of my coleus nurseries.

Today I released 500 of a lady beetle species called Mealy Bug Destroyer, Cryptolaemus montrouzieri, in my three coleus nurseries and some in the greenhouse. It is a tropical species from Australia. I sure hope they help me do battle with my nemeses (mine and my coleus), the dreaded Mealy Bug! We'll see how the Aussies do it!

I was wondering if some of my fellow coleus enthusiasts have ever noticed how delightfully fragrant coleus roots are?! When I'm trying to get some of my rootbound coleus into the ground, as I was today, I often rub the roots and take a whiff, the way you would rub the foliage of herbs and enjoy their aroma. If you haven't already enjoyed the fragrance of coleus roots, you should give it a try! You might be pleasantly surprised at their spicy fragrance. I think some cultivars might be more fragrant than others, but out of the hundreds of varieties I have smelled, I can never seem to remember the standouts. Generally, they are all fragrant. Just another of many characteristics to admire amongst a most charming group of plants!

Seen today in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

Mallotus japonicus

I'm just now getting to plant coleus in my beds, but some of the other tropicals are already hitting their stride.

I took these photos yesterday. They are almost seven and a half feet tall. The canopy has grown dense with leaves and requires watering twice a day with our recent hot and dry wrather. The plants have both dropped branches, and you can see three missing in one of the photos. Disaster could strike any day, and so I was motivated to photograph them again before that happens. They are getting pretty fragile. The top of the ladder is 5'8" from the ground, and there is also a measuring tape beside one of the pots, which I extended through the canopy of one of the plants.

I've was given this when I was a teenager (I'm 61 now), but I never knew its identity.

The Kingswood Critter cultivar photographed has taken on a spiral stem morphology, which I have observed now and then in various cultivars. The Isaac Raphael cutivar takes on a weird overlay of tiny spots in some of its color fields as the leaves age, kind of like Seurat's painting technique of Pointillism. The Fusion Fancy cultivar is hard to photograph because the odd spots have fuzzy edges as the spots color merges into the colors of the field. It makes it look as if it's not in focus.

I don't really plan on keeping this coleus in my collection, but it did catch my eye last year because of its weirdness, and I gave it the working name of 'Another World'.

I noticed these morphology variants in a flat of coleus cultivar Moondust today. One has four leaves per node. One has three leaves per node, and one is fssciated.