I feel good about patronizing the breeder directly via my local garden center. The alternative would be BBS.

There is a fantastic garden center about 90 minutes away, but I just discovered it this winter and have yet to see what their Coleus selection will have to offer, but plan to get some of each they have that I like, whether old or new. If they aren't stocked up when I go by on Monday, I'll ask where they get theirs.

Ok, before I clicked the "Order Now" button, I went to the "local" nursery. It's about 25 minutes away, and it's the largest, so I thought I'd give it a shot. Here's what I got today for 99 cents each (4" pot):

4 Gays Delight
2 Blackberry Waffles
6 Dipt in Wine
4 Inky Fingers
2 Valentine

I also got 5 larger (6" pot, $3.98 each) Coleus, but they don't have tags on them. I'll have to take pics and post them on NameThatPlant.

I also found a 3.5' tall Persian Shield (the only one they had) for $4.98! I don't have any yet and have been wanting and wanting some!

While visiting the nursery's butterfly house with my granddaughter, I also had to buy some Nasturtium 'Alaska,' some cheap Dill and Fennel, and a small purple Firespike.

1 Beckwiths Gem
2 Blackberry Waffles (got it)
3 Blairs Witch
4 Chelsea Rose
5 Dexter
6 Dipt In Wine (got it)
7 Fishnet Stockings (got it, forgot to mention that one above)
8 Flamingo
9 Florida Inferno
10 Gays Delight (got it)
11 Jo-Jo
12 Jungle Love
13 Kingwood Torch
14 Lord Voldemort
15 Mariposa
16 Peter Green
17Peter Wonder
18 Ruby Laser
19 Saturn
20 Solar Flare
21 Solar Shadow
22 Trailing Burgundy
23 Trailing Chocolate
24 Trailing Dark Heart
25 Trailing Garnet Robe
26 Trailing Lava Rose
27 Trailing Red
28 Trailing Rose
29 Trailing Salamander
30 Trailing Strawberry
31 Valentine (got it)
32 Vino
33 Violet Tricolor
34 Walter Turner
35 Black Beauty
36 Elfers

So now I'll take the ones I've got off the list, but then I'll add back some of the ones I originally ruled out. Like:
El Brighto
Electric Lime (Have some but want more)
Golda
Hit and Run
Grenadine
Haines
Hedwig

Oh for the love, this is silly. Let's just assume I want them all, K?

~Bridget

I started seeing some really spectacular coleus plantings last year (instead of the usual impatiens) . One was so stunning I asked the restaurant who their landscaping company was so I could call and compliment them!

Swallowtail seed has a pretty nice collection.

I did read about a woman who made herself a very simple little outdoor space just using lattice fencing and shade cloth up against the side of her house. Seed would be started inside under lights, but then moved to this more protected area to grow big enough to plant in the garden. temps of 50 at night - 65 in the day are perfect for growing on most young plants. You probably already have that.

Starting indoors makes a huge difference for me because I live in WI, most things cant get planted out till the end of May here.

If you haven't looked at the seed varieties, you should.

Joseph

For those of you looking into seed I just ran across this site - Summer Hill Seed, they have a nice variety

tj

Did you pot them up from their original containers? Either way, how would you describe the potting mix.....very fine textured, fine textured but with some perlite, medium, coarse with bark fines, garden 'dirt ', unidentifiable matter from an undetermined source?

Are you able to water thoroughly until lots of water drains from the bottom? Are you certain that the water is soaking the whole soil volume and not leaving any dry pockets?

Might you be watering too frequently? Does the medium turn to cement after it begins to dry?

You can probably tell that I suspect that the problem is related to issues with the potting medium/watering/root system. It usually is! But we still need more information about the life of your coleus since coming into your ownership.

And be sure to check out the obvious......is there any chance that the stem has suffered a crack....even below the soil level? What about the root system?

And in the following picture, you can see that it is clearly just being a jerk. This is where it sits, with all the other Coleus waiting for their new homes. They're perfectly happy! I had this pot on the right, on the left, in the front, in the back, and in the middle. It's determined to be the... let's call it the purple-headed step-child of the group.

What's going on in the pot? Can't see in there at all.

If you had a big male dog, I might think it had gotten peed on...

Since it's getting chilly here tonight anyways, I was bringing plants into the screened porch to at least block the wind. That Coleus came into the house. I intended to cut off whatever was dead, but that turned out to be over 2/3 of the plant. Only one stem is viable.
So I pulled it out of the pot, cut off the piece with leaves that you see in the pic above and put it in water... then took a piece of the stem that's still alive and put that in water, also.
Seems like a lot of trouble and frustration and disappointment for $3.
Durn it!

Sometimes, the early symptoms of diseases can look very much alike, and the only way to find out for sure what might be going on is to ship plant samples off to your plant pest and disease clinic at your state's research university. Information about this service can be found at your local extension office.

Probably not worth it for one plant, though.

After a lot of soul-searching and blunt internal discussion, this mildew issue has made me decide not to do the big order of Coleus I had discussed above (and meticulously planned with a spreadsheet.)

Not that I won't be out there buying Coleus soon, but it seems like tempting fate to devote that much space and $ to this vulnerable plant.

My plan is to use more "house plants" in the ground which I can save just like Coleus if I don't feel like digging up roots in the fall. Begonias, Tradescantias, Cordyline, Aglaonemas, sweet potato vine, Cissus, Sansevieria, and other colorful plants will go nuts in the ground just like Coleus, giving similar effect without the monoculture danger, and be similarly easy to save. In a good location for it, very long season but cold winter nights should help kill any remaining roots.

The more I think about it, the less sense it makes to give ONLY Coleus the chance to have so much fun, a chance to roam out of their pots. I've already babbled about this in the house plants forum, but the past couple weeks the idea has congealed into being a replacement for the amount of Coleus I originally had in mind as well.

Thanks for the caveat in the Coleus mildew thread, Rhizo! I needed that.

This discussion reminds me of a commercial lately where this little girl says, "If you like it, you just want more. We want more! We want more!"

I, too, rethought my huge order. I want to see if these coleus are disease-free first. And I've got a lot of other yarden "projects" going on right now. I'm not sure anyone would believe how many plants I've bought, propagated, found, been given, etc already this year that have been waiting for me to plant or pot them.
I'm almost done, too. I just have to pot some of the cuttings that are currently in water and are ready for pots. Once that's done, I have to mulch everything (I counted, I need about 50 bags!) THEN I can tear out more grass and go buy more plants!

Wish you were coming to the garden party, purple. How far of a drive is it for you? *hint*

I'm not worried about buying diseased plants, just that the wind could bring the disease to my yard and virtually wipe out the entire landscape...

I need to make more beds too, in the sun, so I'm not so hung up on Coleus! Do you have the patience for lasagna? The one new sunny spot I have ready to plant this year got molested a few weeks ago, a dog tried to dig under the fence to get in our yard. They used to just open the gate until we put another latch on it. Luckily that spot was still empty!

Think I'll have to create a swap/party here to have one close enough to attend. The AL forum does one up by Birmingham.

When is this thing? Orlando is about 6 hours, still in the realm of needing a hotel, even I can't justify that expense with $4 gallon gas too.

Our vacation funds this year are already appropriated to a trip to NOLA, a trip up north in the summer, canoeing at least once, and hopefully a camping trip or two in there somewhere, lots of day trips to the beach. I do need to take my son on a pilgrimage to see The Mouse, he's already 8 & we haven't done it yet. I could plan that to coincide with this plant thing, '14 or '15, if it's an annual event.

Sending good vibes to everyone's Coleus!

And here we have close-ups of some examples of what I'm seeing happening. Also, I've noticed the new leaves seem stunted. They don't grow very big before they either stop growing or fall off.

Misshapen leaves, 'browning out'...

Hard to really tell in this picture, but the leaf in the center is sorta 'browning out.'

If this was a fancy goldfish, I'd say this one has 'dropsy.'

Some weird new-growth habit, among other things.

More brown spots, plus white spots. At the edge of the pot, you can see the leaves are dying here and there.

This is an attempt at a close-up of one of the worst ones. Small leaves that fall off if you even touch them.

Another particularly affected plant.

The first sign of a problem on a previously robust plant.

I don't know what the problem is, but it's obviously contagious. I'm going to have to pull all of this out, dump the brand new potting media into the trash, wash and sterilize the pots, wait for some undetermined length of time, then replace it all.

Super bummer.

I only hope that whatever it is doesn't spread to things that AREN'T Coleus.

The Garden Party is April 11th. It's an annual thing, around the same time of year, though this will be the first one I've attended.

I guess you'd need a microscope to confirm what's going on with your plants, but looks a lot like the pics from the link in "coleus down mildew" thread. But you don't need me to tell you that. Hope it's something else, but I don't know what... ugh!

I'd love to say your problems are just soil, moisture, or something else environmental, but mine are all thriving, be it full sun, shade, or even in my Colocasia water-logged pot. =(

In a month or so, maybe I could send you a collection of prop pups to get you back on your feet... as long as everything holds up well over here (knock on wood).

Mike