Coleus is a genus of annual or perennial herbs or shrubs, sometimes succulent, sometimes with a fleshy or tuberous rootstock, found in the Afro-Eurasia tropics and subtropics.
These plants are popular ornamental plants primarily grown for their beautiful foliage rather than their flowers. Their leaves come in a dazzling array of colors and patterns, including combinations of green, yellow, red, pink, and purple, often with contrasting veins or edges. This makes them ideal for adding vibrant color to gardens, borders, and indoor containers.
Native to tropical regions of Asia and Africa, coleus plants thrive in warm climates with plenty of indirect sunlight. They are part of the mint family, Lamiaceae, and share some characteristics with other aromatic plants, although most coleus varieties are not grown for their scent.
Coleus plants vary widely in size and form. Some cultivars grow compact and bushy, perfect for small pots or edging, while others can reach several feet in height, creating dramatic visual impact in garden beds. Their soft stems and textured leaves add both color and dimension to landscaping designs.
These plants are versatile in gardening. They can be grown outdoors in shaded to partially sunny areas, as full sun can sometimes scorch their delicate leaves. Indoor cultivation is also common, where they can brighten rooms and thrive with moderate watering and indirect light.
Coleus are relatively easy to propagate. They can be grown from seeds, but cuttings are the most common method, as this allows gardeners to preserve the exact colors and patterns of the parent plant. Rooting cuttings in water or soil is straightforward and often successful even for beginners.
While generally hardy, coleus plants are susceptible to a few problems, including fungal diseases, pests like aphids or mealybugs, and leaf dropping if overwatered or exposed to extreme conditions. Proper care, such as well-draining soil, moderate watering, and occasional feeding, helps maintain healthy, vibrant foliage.
Types of Coleus Plants
Campfire
Campfire coleus has distinctly red leaves and a mounded growth habit. It looks great in pots, perhaps with purple trailing petunias spilling out, or as a border in an annual bed with something taller behind like argyranthemum and a low growing annual like lobelia in front.
ColorBlaze Golden Dreams
ColorBlaze Golden Dreams features electric lime leaves with dark red veins. In more sun, the red becomes more pronounced, and in shady conditions, it is more lime colored. It grows big and beautiful in pots and in the ground, with a mounded growth habit, and can handle both sun and shade while pairing beautifully with chartreuse or red companions.
ColorBlaze Rediculous
ColorBlaze Rediculous has big bold red leaves and can handle both sun and shade conditions with an upright growth habit. It looks great in planters with other flowers that have a bit of red, such as calibrachoa with a red eye.
Dragon Heart
Dragon Heart has slightly pointed chartreuse leaves with a dramatic fuschia center that bleeds to a burgundy through the veins. In more sun, it has more pink and burgundy; in shade, it is more chartreuse. It works well in pots alone or with complimentary pink or chartreuse plants.
El Brighto
El Brighto has long pointed leaves with wavy margins, featuring a dark burgundy center surrounded by green, another margin of burgundy, fading to a lighter pink with a bright yellow edge. It makes an excellent centerpiece in containers.
Electric Lime
Electric Lime features medium green leaves with bright yellow veins and an upright growth habit. It serves as a versatile background filler in pots or gardens due to its neutral color with intricate yellow veins.
ColorBlaze Wicked
WitchColorBlaze Wicked Witch has smaller burgundy, almost black leaves with a lime green ruffled margin. Its compact growth habit makes it suitable for pots or near chartreuse foliage like lemon cypress, with colors enhancing in bright conditions.
French Quarter
French Quarter is a large leaf variety with a bright magenta center running through the veins into a chartreuse leaf. It can stand alone in pots or in mass plantings and pairs well with magenta or chartreuse plants like calibrachoa, petunias, or Lysimachia.
Trusty Rusty
Trusty Rusty has large rust-colored leaves with a golden-yellow margin and slightly variegated foliage. It is suitable for mixed containers or planted in the ground next to solid-colored plants like sweet potato vine.
ColorBlaze Royale Cherry Brandy
ColorBlaze Royale Cherry Brandy features a velvet burgundy color with thin deeply serrated leaves. It grows fast and lush, filling pots or garden beds, with more vibrant burgundy in sun and an upright habit that pairs nicely with wider leaf foliage or grasses.
Wizard Rose
Wizard Rose has bright pink centers, creamy white, followed by a medium green border. It is low growing with a mounded habit, making great borders, edges, or low filler in containers.
Kong Red
Kong Red has a dark burgundy center with a magenta inner stripe and chartreuse edges on extra large leaves. Its upright growth habit with giant leaves gives a bold presence in pots or gardens.
Kong Rose
Kong Rose has a large green margin with burgundy veins and a magenta center, sometimes with white patches depending on sun. It shares the extra large leaves and upright growth habit of the Kong series, making it a common choice for pots or beds.
Wizard Jade
Wizard Jade has creamy white centers with a sharp, medium-green border. It is low growing and simple, favored for indoor use or as filler in pots with elegant green and white themes like alyssum or white begonias.
Wizard Mosaic
Wizard Mosaic has bright chartreuse leaves with blotches of burgundy. As a low growing variety from the Wizard series, it looks great in pots with pure burgundy coleus or at the front of garden borders.
Black Dragon
Black Dragon is a dark maroon/purple variety with deeply ruffled leaves, lighter maroon center, and dramatic dark burgundy edge. It pairs well with steely silver plants like dusty miller.
Fishnet Stockings
Fishnet Stockings has bright electric lime leaves with dark purple, almost black veins. More sun increases the dark red tones, making it suitable alone in pots or mixed with other trailing plants.
Wizard Coral Sunrise
Wizard Coral Sunrise has salmon pink centers with dark burgundy brown blotches (more in sun) and a medium green margin. As a low lying variety, it serves as filler in containers or at the front of beds and also works well as a houseplant.
Wizard Scarlet
Wizard Scarlet has red centers with a limey green to golden yellow margin. This low lying variety is ideal for filler in containers or at the front of garden borders, often placed under taller red coleus.
Twist and Twirl
Twist and Twirl has deeply lobed leaves with splotches of red, gold, and green, boldest in full sun. It works well as a thriller in pots or in mixed garden borders.
Freckles
Freckles is either reddish orange leaves with chartreuse specks or pure chartreuse with reddish orange freckles. More sun pronounces the reddish-orange tones, making it great in mixed containers with yellow calibrachoa or cordyline dracaena.
Le Freak
Le Freak has deep red leaves with golden margins and trilobed shape, center lobe elongated. Its interesting texture stands out next to larger rounder leaves like hosta.
Chocolate Covered Cherry
Chocolate Covered Cherry has bright magenta interiors melting to irregular dark burgundy margin with a thin bright green edge. Less light enlarges the green margin, and it pairs beautifully with chartreuse plants like lysimachia.
Watermelon
Watermelon has bright magenta centers with burgundy bleeding through veins and green border, on smaller leaves. Its bushy and mounded habit makes it a great filler in containers or mass borders, with more sun increasing pink and burgundy while reducing green.
Henna
Henna has smaller jagged, spiky-edged leaves that are bright chartreuse with magenta to burgundy tips and pink/burgundy underside. More sun pronounces the pink and burgundy, giving it fall foliage vibes when planted with pink petunias.
Rustic Orange
Rustic Orange has slightly pointed rusty orange/red leaves with a sharp golden margin. It mixes well with deep purple flowers like Royal Velvet petunias or purple fountain grass for autumn vibes.
Burgundy Wedding Train
Burgundy Wedding Train is low growing with small, wide, heart-shaped leaves that are burgundy inside with medium green border. It acts as trailing in pots or creeping ground cover in gardens, great in rock gardens or spilling containers.
Wasabi
Wasabi has bright wasabi green solid color with rough fringed leaves. It brightens shady areas and contrasts nicely next to solid red coleus with its soft texture.
FlameThrower
FlameThrower has very pointed leaves with burgundy interior and lime green margin. Its unique spiked foliage works well in pots alone or mass garden borders, paired with softer plants.
China Rose
China Rose has serrated burgundy leaves with bright fuschia pink centers. It is popular as a houseplant or in pots with chartreuse and green plants, or in garden beds to break up green foliage.
Vino
Vino has extra dark burgundy wine color with slightly pointed leaves and fine green margin. More sun darkens the leaves and shrinks the margin, pairing well with vibrant lime green plants like lime ipomea.
ColorBlaze Chocolate
DropColorBlaze Chocolate Drop has small heart-shaped leaves with burgundy center bleeding through veins in a lace pattern and medium green borders. Its lower growing, creeping habit makes it ideal for trailers in pots or low borders in beds.
ColorBlaze Pineapple Brandy
ColorBlaze Pineapple Brandy has small pointed, deeply serrated leaves in vibrant pineapple yellow with reddish brandy stems. Its compact growth pairs nicely with burgundy flowers like petunias.
Wizard Red Velvet
Wizard Red Velvet has red slightly pointed leaves with a thin green margin. As a shorter, low growing variety, it serves as filler in pots or low borders in garden beds.
Big Red JudyBig
Red Judy has large slightly pointed and serrated leaves in bright red. Its upright growth makes it a garden staple for contrast in pots or gardens.
Alabama Sunset
Alabama Sunset is prized for its warm orange-red foliage that holds color best in partial shade, where it avoids fading seen in full sun. With a mounded habit, it adds sunset tones to borders, beds, or containers for reliable warm-season color.
Red Head
Red Head is a large, hearty grower with vivid red foliage that performs strongly in both sunny and shaded locations. It provides bold, dependable color and fills out well in mixed plantings or as a standout in garden beds.
Inky FingersInky
Fingers features deeply lobed, dark purple to nearly black leaves that resemble inky fingers for dramatic texture. It is reliable in cooler climates and partial shade, making it perfect for mixed containers or shady garden spots where contrast is needed.
Giant Exhibition Magma
Giant Exhibition Magma boasts large, deep burgundy leaves edged in thin light green and grows to a substantial size in shade or filtered light. It creates bold focal points in pots or gardens with its showy scale and rich tones.
ColorBlaze Dipt in Wine
ColorBlaze Dipt in Wine displays rich burgundy-red leaves with pronounced chartreuse edges that intensify in full shade. Its trailing habit and vibrant contrast make it excellent for large pots, hanging baskets, or spilling over edges in shaded spots.