Very Important Plant
To gardeners it will always be coleus, but to botanists it’s now Plectranthus scutellarioides, which is a bit tricky on the tongue. The coleus, or painted nettle, has been beloved by gardeners since the late Victorian period for its flamboyantly- coloured foliage in a breath- taking range of colours and patterns in every tone except pure blue. Leaf shape is just as attractive with a complexity of size, form and lobing to edges of leaves.
Introduced to Europe from Java in the 1830s, this tender short-lived perennial, which grows to about 76cm (30in), was more unassuming, showing little of the flamboyance that was to come. By 1877 more colours had started to be introduced, but then declined as breeders sought to select for seed raising, which affected development of spectacular foliage displays. By the 1940s, breeders had made coloured-leaved forms available from seed, a trend which continued into the 1980s.
Vegetative propagation also meant that specific varieties could be established and sold to an appreciative public. Its popularity took a dip in the 1990s as its uncompromising flamboyance was a little out of step with the culture of the day, b but it’ ss no wow making agaco comeback, ebac, particularly with the ease of online selling of plug plants of specific varieties. It’s mainly grown as an annual for summer bedding or as a specimen in pots and urns, with plants either cut back after flowering and protected in a frost-free greenhouse or conservatory, overwintered as rooted cuttings, or grown from a fresh batch of seed each year.