Hi i purchased a watermelon coleus less than a week ago. Almost immediately the leaves started drooping and has only been getting worse. I thought I might've been over watering it (which was weird cuz I watered it once) so I stopped watering it. With no improvement I then decided to water again. It gets plenty of sunlight and is in a well draining pot with good soil. I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

How is the temperature next to the window? Does it get cold? Also, I would check the roots and see if they aren't rotting.

Welcome, Devyn. Did you repot the coleus? Loretta may have the answer if it is too cool at the window. Lift the pot and see if it feels heavy or light in your hand. It should not feel heavy unless it's had too much water. If it were mine, I'd cut the large leaves in half and I wouldn't water until the weight of the pot decreases.

Also look at the stem and make sure it isn't turning black.

If you stopped watering it and repotted it then it's under extreme stress. It's also in much too large a pot.

Agreed!

True, if you disturbed the root ball while repotting, you could have stressed it. And if you just dropped the root ball in another medium, sometimes the water goes around the roots, especially if it was dried out coir or peat and the new soil is moist. I've had to break open root balls in the past to get out whatever junk it was grown in.
There is no way you caused root rot if you watered once. Coleus can take wet feet for quite a while. Instead when I look at your cutting, it looks like it is a bit stingy in length. If it doesn't bounce back I would suspect a greenhouse plant that wasn't hardened off and doesn't have a lot of roots. You could place the whole pot inside a plastic bag, not completely closed off and see if you can get it to bounce back that way.

LorettaNJ said:True, if you disturbed the root ball while repotting, you could have stressed it. And if you just dropped the root ball in another medium, sometimes the water goes around the roots, especially if it was dried out coir or peat and the new soil is moist. I've had to break open root balls in the past to get out whatever junk it was grown in.
There is no way you caused root rot if you watered once. Coleus can take wet feet for quite a while. Instead when I look at your cutting, it looks like it is a bit stingy in length. If it doesn't bounce back I would suspect a greenhouse plant that wasn't hardened off and doesn't have a lot of roots. You could place the whole pot inside a plastic bag, not completely closed off and see if you can get it to bounce back that way.

Ok so I ended up moving the plant outside and trimming some of the leaves. The window wasn't too cool it gets pretty sunny there. So now its outside and its doing no better. Actually it hasn't gotten worse but no changes. The soil is constantly moist even if I haven't watered in a week however if I go deeper there is no water down their. The soil is as if it came straight from a fresh bag of potting soil. About a week later I decided to repot it which now looking back probably did stress it out. However, there has been absolutely no changes. The leaves arent growing at all and the stem is normal.

Leave it in filtered shade and hope for the best. Do not feed it and don't give it too much water.

Coleus can have a slow death like that and it is usually from the stem and roots. But also, you just have it two weeks. You trimmed off the wilted leaves, you put outdoors in good moist soil, so all you can do now is wait as Arlene said and hope some growth shows up. If not, get another coleus. I have had coleus in your state before. Some make it and become beautiful plants and some not.

LorettaNJ said:Coleus can have a slow death like that and it is usually from the stem and roots. But also, you just have it two weeks. You trimmed off the wilted leaves, you put outdoors in good moist soil, so all you can do now is wait as Arlene said and hope some growth shows up. If not, get another coleus. I have had coleus in your state before. Some make it and become beautiful plants and some not.

Yeah I have owned them before and they did great but an earthquake it and knocked them over and they died. We have flamethrower coleus in our yard as well in pots and they are doing great. The best we've had with them. But just for some reason this one isn't doing so well. A friend suggested that it may have been sick or already dying when I bought which I think could actually have been a possibility.

I think that is the case. Not your doing.