Coleus

Rainbow Foliage for Containers and Gardens

Photographs by Richard Hartlage

Coleus are no longer your grandmother's parlor plants. Favorites during the Victorian era, these plants have made a dramatic comeback with a dazzling variety of leaf color, shape, and pattern. No other plant is so easy to grow and propagate. Their sumptuous colors and tough constitution make coleus ideal both as attention-getting focal points and as complements to other foliage or flowering plants. In this lavishly illustrated volume, expert plantsman Ray Rogers offers equal parts of design inspiration and practical advice. The heart of the book is an encyclopedia that describes and evaluates more than 225 varieties.

Media reviews of this book:

"Ray Rogers takes a comprehensive look at these garden staples and even shows a few uses for them, such as training them into topiaries, that we never thought of. If you haven't been tempted by the new cultivars and want to see what all the chatter is about, this is the place to start."

—Susan Banks, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 10, 2008

"[Rogers] shows how gardeners can get the maximum benefits from this colorful plant. ... Recommended."

—Phillip Oliver, Library Journal, February 1, 2008

Customer reviews of this book:

"This book, with all the different types of coleus, was beyond belief — just beautiful!"

—C. B. from Portage, Indiana, April 8, 2008

An excerpt from this book:

While the skeptics and unbelievers would answer this question with, "What? There's such a thing as a good coleus?", any coleophile worth his or her salt appreciates which characteristics set a given coleus above another. Perhaps the most important quality of a good coleus is its "set and forget" nature (thanks to Vern Ogren of Color Farm for this catchy term): plant it and enjoy it without needing to make a constant fuss over it. Of course any plant deserves to receive sound horticultural treatment from its caretaker, with at least some thought given to its selection, function, and placement in the garden; adequate site preparation; appropriate amounts of water and fertilizer; and protection from the elements, insects, diseases, and the like ...

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