Overwintering Coleus: Placement and Light

It is officially the end of summer at Rosy Dawn Gardens. The coleus that were not fortunate enough to make it into the greenhouse are charred by frost and hanging limply over the sides of their pots. Inside the greenhouse, life goes on in colorful splendor, defying shorter days and cooler temperatures. Fall invariably brings a flurry of emails from our customers asking if there is a way to overwinter their coleus. So... What do you do if you do not have a greenhouse but you can't bear the thought of letting your beautiful coleus succumb to the the ravages of winter?
I won't sugarcoat it - keeping coleus in the house can be a tricky proposition. All the things that coleus love in the winter are in short supply inside the average home: good light, humidity, and good air circulation. It can be done, however, and many people do pull it off successfully by creating, in their home, the atmosphere that coleus need. Some people devote a whole spare room or basement area to their tender annuals, and some can only find a single window or corner of a room to spare for the cause. Either way, the goal of keeping the coleus alive until spring can be achieved.
The first consideration has to be light, since window placement is often the primary factor when deciding where your coleus are going to spend the winter. Unfortunately, windows in the average home seldom provide the ideal environment for coleus. If you place the coleus too close to the window they may be subjected to drafts and injured by contact with cold glass. Often there are heat vents in front of windows which can blast the coleus with hot, dry air. Windows often provide inconsistent levels of light. Your coleus could sit in relative darkness during the early part of the day and be blasted by too much direct sun in the afternoon. Plus, the coleus have to be very close to the window. Positioning your coleus a mere 12-18 inches away from the glass may not provide enough light for good health, even at the brightest point in the day. Despite the reputation of coleus as a shade-loving plant, they will not thrive in the low light conditions of the average home and, at best, lean and stretch for the light and become spindly. The simplest answer to this problem is to provide artificial light to supplement or substitute for natural light.
There are a number of options when purchasing artificial light. No-frills, 48" fluorescent shop light fixtures are very inexpensive at hardware and home-improvement stores and are the best buy for the amount of light you get. They can be suspended on chains, affixed to a stand, or set up between two stacks of bricks or other sturdy, non-flammable material. Standard fluorescent bulbs are economical and will do the trick for a few months indoors, or you can use the more costly grow-light bulbs for a full spectrum of light. I would definitely recommend grow-lights if your indoor growing situation is permanent. There are other types of grow-light fixtures available in all sorts of sizes and configurations, ranging from little light strips that can be mounted under a cupboard to stand-alone fixtures like goose neck lamps. Spotlights can be ceiling-mounted, but most grow lights have to be within a few inches of the top of the leaves to be effective. The most deluxe (and costly) option is a ready-to-use indoor gardening center that has one to three levels and all of the bells and whistles for growing coleus and other tender plants inside the house. One could build a similar set-up with minimal carpentry skills and some ingenuity. For many years before erecting our first greenhouse I started seeds and overwintered tender plants under homemade banks of lights in the basement and in other nooks and crannies in the house. I found it preferable to have free-standing fixtures and be independent of our limited windowsill space. Grow lights can also be used to supplement natural light in front of a window or door wall. Suspending or supporting fixtures above your plants will give you the ability to provide your coleus brighter light on cloudy days and extending the short days of mid-winter. There are other types of grow lights on the market as well. The newest type are energy-efficient LED grow lights, and if you want to make the investment it would be a great way to go. I have never used them, so I cannot offer instruction on how to use them. Comments from readers would be welcome!
If a windowsill is your only option, then you have to make do. Coleus have been kept over the winter for generations in a kitchen window, sometimes as nothing more than a cutting in a jar of water. It may not have been the loveliest of creatures come spring, but the coleus survived to see another summer.

Winding Down

Saturday, June 5, is the last day for placing orders in the 2010 season!! Beginning Sunday, June 6, all items will be listed as out-of-stock until our 2011 catalog is released online December 1. I want to send a big Thank You to all of our customers for making 2010 another successful season for Rosy Dawn Gardens! Now I might actually have time to post more than I have been able to for the past few months.
We have had an unseasonably warm and sunny May and it is a relief to be done. Temperatures in the greenhouses have routinely been over 100 degrees, and many of the May orders were picked in temperatures well beyond that! For those that wonder why we close our business in early June, please imagine yourself spending long workdays in that hot, steamy environment seven days a week! Coleus like warmth, but since we grow ours in plugs even they don't do so well after a certain point and need to be planted in pots. Beyond those tangible reasons for calling it quits in June, there is our mental health to consider. We have not had a day off since January 1 and that gets a little old - even for workaholics like us! We have missed birthdays of our children and grandchildren. Easter, Mother's Day, and Memorial Day are non-existant in our home as they are all days we pack coleus to ship the next morning. Our youngest son is graduating from high school next week and we are happy to say that since we are ceasing shipping at this point we can actually attend!
Now for the gratitude portion of this post...
We so appreciate our customers and our business! We have made so many great friends and, despite the heat, we really enjoy the beautiful coleus and working with them every day. Our customers are so great and many send pictures of their coleus and their gardens and share important details of their lives with us. At this point in the year we also have the opportunity to support local organizations with donations of coleus for their fundraising. Since we are so busy most of the year it is good to be able to give back to the community in some small way.
Have a great summer in your gardens, patios, decks, balconies, and indoor light gardens!

Introducing a New Coleus

We occasionally get letters from customers that are excited because they have discovered a new coleus seedling or sport (mutation). I can understand that excitement! We see nifty sports and seedlings from time to time, and of course we always hope that they are something new and unique. However, we have to remember that most new discoveries end up on the compost heap. Appearance is just one of many important factors that we, as gardeners, are looking for. At Rosy Dawn Gardens we are not interested in introducing a plant that is difficult to propagate and cannot be reliably grown in a wide range of conditions. We have to prove to ourselves that any new coleus is a garden-worthy coleus and not just another hot-house beauty that needs to be coddled and protected in order to survive.

At Rosy Dawn Gardens, introducing a new worthwhile variety takes patience and time. First we collect data about the plant so we can create a full description to present to potential buyers. Cuttings of the coleus need to be taken to see how well it propagates. The resulting plants are then grown outdoors during the summer in several different locations: full sun, shade, morning sun, etc. They are grown in the ground and in containers. They are grown both alone and in combination with other coleus and container plants. We take notes about its height at maturity, when and if it blooms, its growing habit (does it grow upright, bushy, or trail?). Then we watch to see how well the plant overwinters. If it does well with the rigors of outdoor life, grows vigorously, resists disease, overwinters well, and propagates easily, then we might have a coleus with more than a pretty face to recommend it! Usually we repeat the process for two to three years before introducing a coleus to commerce.

This year we have introduced a lovely coleus called 'Chloe' (shown), a seedling out of 'Flame Thrower'. She is a bushy coleus with a mounded form and she grows a bit larger than her parent. Her pink color and green edge sparkle just like her namesake: our granddaughter Chloe! We have been evaluating this coleus for two full years and have been very pleased with all facets of her growth habit and vigor. We hope you agree!