Hello fellow gardeners,

I'm in a bit of a tizzy. The front of my townhome is north facing. What I would like to do is get 3 huge pots and plant coleus in them. The problem is the plants must absolutely love shade full time. My front porch is covered by an overhang so if any east sun gets through it's a slither in the summer AM.

I'm looking for suggestions on shade loving coleus varieties. There are an insane amount of varieties and unfortunately our plant database does not have a lot of information on the varieties such as light condition.

Another thing is I like to grow plants from seed. If I were to grow a shade coleus variety from seed, what I also want to germinate that seed in shade as well on the porch? I'm also not familiar with any coleus seed websites to purchase.

I would look for a variety of leaf shapes, for that aspect of interest, and something trailing. From there, if you pick several basically different colors, even if they're a bit faded, they will still be different colors, like red, yellow & lime. They might not develop wild multi colors, but should still be a collection of different colors. I haven't encountered any Coleus that couldn't take full sun or none, but compared to the available varieties, the few dozen I've had at various times is barely a drop in the bucket.

I haven't grown any Coleus from seed except for some volunteers that have come up occasionally. Can't say much about the seed aspect.

The ones with "sun", "Florida", will probably look the most faded compared to the pics you find. But all Coleus look different, depending on the amount of sun. If you browse pics in the plant database on this website, you'll see many pics for some of the cultivars, showing a range of appearance from shade to sun.

If you decide to add some blooms, I recommend very light colors. They show up so much better in the shade.

Thank you @purpleinopp for all the information!

I'm thinking of possibly purchasing coleus plants already grown who like shade instead of seed. What I remembered from a coleus I had years ago is that it would re-seed itself pretty often which I thought was neat. I always had little shoots coming up. That was however in east sunlight so the sun probably helped it out a bit.

My pleasure! I never met a Coleus I didn't like, just those that I didn't like as much as the ones I bought.

All my Coleus do better in the shade and have nicer colors. The one in this picture with the red leaves and green edges does ok in the sun as I accidentally found out when I was away for 3 months in spring 2020. As long as it gets enough water they survive, but in general, much happier in the shade.

The lacy one on the left is variety 'Florida Beauty' I think. I have another called 'Dip't in Wine' that has red on the ends of the leaves. Then this red one with the border was a start I got from a friend and I don't know the name.


This one 'Kong' grew on my daughter's front porch in full shade (in Utah) last year in a large pot, and was magnificent. I brought home a cutting and it is growing larger leaves here in FL but still looks amazing already, came through winter nicely.



If you're growing them in pots, you could move them to a spot with more light if you want them to change colors, then back to the shady area for a bit of variety. Temperature also makes a difference to the amount of color in the leaves, I've found. If it's hot I get more dark red, so use cool water to water them sometimes to try and keep them a bit cooler.

The Kong series are awesome. Some of the leaves can get enormous, almost a foot long/wide.
https://garden.org/plants/sear...

Neat! I didn't know 'Kong' was a whole series. Gotta look for some more of those, I love them. My big one I grew from the cutting has leaves larger than my spread out hand, for sure.
looking very dark right now

a colorful sport, same plant

I think I'm going to cut off that sport, and see if I can start a new plant with it.

Very pretty!

Okay I need everyone's recommendations. I bought $40 worth of different coleus varieties for my front porch which is almost all shade. It only gets some morning sun, but not in winter months.

I planted the coleus seeds on Feb 22nd. They came up in just a few days. It's been well over a month and they are still insanely tiny. Should I be worried? Should I put them in the back of my house? (South Facing) I understand coleus are generally slow growers, but this really concerns me. Maybe I need them in full sun to get their first sets of adult leaves? Please let me know. I included the pictures of the pots.

I've never had success with packets of seed but an occasional Coleus sprout will show up in my flower beds. They don't get very big the first year.

I'm just concerned that these will just die in the pot since they're not making progress at all. Any thoughts? @dyzzypyxxy @purpleinopp

First thought is you should start with cuttings, or transplants if you don't have friends who will give you cuttings. You gain months of growth time that way.

My only idea on the babies is that your potting mix looks quite coarse for seedlings. I always use a seed starting mix, that's much finer and would hold more moisture. Seedlings should never be let to dry out. No specific experience with coleus seedlings, they just seed themselves in my garden and I transplant them when they're an inch or two tall. But I start lots of other seeds.

Suggest you buy a little bag of it, put some in small pots and try to transplant a few of your seedlings into it. A tiny spoon works well for moving seedlings for me. Chop sticks are also handy for the little tiny plants if you can manipulate them, so you can be very gentle and not break the roots or stems. You need to thin those seedlings anyway, they can't grow much that close together.

I don't have anything to add.

dyzzypyxxy said: First thought is you should start with cuttings, or transplants if you don't have friends who will give you cuttings. You gain months of growth time that way.

My only idea on the babies is that your potting mix looks quite coarse for seedlings. I always use a seed starting mix, that's much finer and would hold more moisture. Seedlings should never be let to dry out. No specific experience with coleus seedlings, they just seed themselves in my garden and I transplant them when they're an inch or two tall. But I start lots of other seeds.

Suggest you buy a little bag of it, put some in small pots and try to transplant a few of your seedlings into it. A tiny spoon works well for moving seedlings for me. Chop sticks are also handy for the little tiny plants if you can manipulate them, so you can be very gentle and not break the roots or stems. You need to thin those seedlings anyway, they can't grow much that close together.

Awesome, thank you!
Do you think it would be beneficial to put place the seedlings in the south facing sun or would that not jumpstart them? They're currently sitting on a north facing porch.

I definitely would not put them directly into the sun. My coleus seedlings in the garden usually are found in the shade of the 'mother' plant. If you put them in the sun in that coarse soil, they'll dry out very quickly and it may kill them.

But the color of the seedlings in your picture isn't very green, so possibly they need a bit more light. Can you move them towards the light without putting them in direct sun? Or maybe just give them an hour or two of morning sun each day to warm them up?

After you transplant them, maybe try moving some of them gradually towards more light and see if they change color or start growing. Are they staying fairly warm at night? I'm a bit south of you in Sarasota, and our nights have been cool-ish for the last week. Tonight is the first time I've had the a/c on in over a week. The cool nights may have something to do with the slow growth you're seeing, too.

I've had placed the pots out in the sun now for a few weeks. Absolutely zero growth except for one or two of them. The leaves are getting a tiny bit larger. I think the coleus in the other pots may just be trashed. Ugh, it sucks too because I spent around $40 on the seeds with really only 2 possible viable plants from two seeds. I don't know what to do. I may just go to the store and purchase some coleus plants

That's so frustrating, so sorry! I suspect the soil is the problem too. It looks like mulch in the pics.

Did you try transplanting any seedlings to a fine seed starting mix, Thea?

I agree with Tiffany that the soil is the problem. Your seedlings are struggling to make new roots in that coarse soil. Too much wood chip fines in there for tiny seedlings to grow.

@dyzzypyxxy I just bought some seed mix and had the coleus retailer resend additional coleus. Thinking of putting saran wrap on the pot this time to help keep humidity in there. Fingers crossed.

Peter, there are lots of Coleus available at the nurseries now. Why don't you forget about starting from seed for this season, and buy some transplants. It's getting awfully warm for trying to plant out seedlings. You'll have nice size plants so much sooner if you do. Start seeds in October, grow them through the cooler months, and you'll have a garden full of wonderful = good size transplants next spring.

You'll also be able to take cuttings of the ones you buy, and carry them over for new plants next spring.

My Coleus are all over 2ft tall and growing like gangbusters now. This picture, the pot is 16in. for size reference.