The National Garden Bureau, Inc., an organization who's stated mission is " to improve the quality of life and the environment through increased use of seeds and plants", has named 2015 "Year of the Coleus."
According to the NGB website,
"With the continued emphasis on the importance of foliage in our gardens, the wide and exciting range of coleus varieties available to the gardening public should augment the planting palette nicely. Chosen as the annual for the National Garden Bureau’s 2015 program, coleus is a durable plant with very significant gardening potential for a wide range of gardeners and their garden situations. Coleus has a long history of use in our gardens as a foliage plant and has gone through various phases of popularity over the past couple of centuries. The relative ease of establishment after planting combined with a wide range of selections has made coleus indispensable in the garden and popular in the container as well."
Now, I don't know about you, but I don't really put much stock into what plant varieties an industry-based member organization deems worthy of a "YEAR OF" title, but I certainly do absolutely, positively A-D-O-R-E coleus and think that it's a fantastic plant to grow! You might remember a post I made last year describing my attraction to the coleus aisle in a local garden center as that of like a moth to a flame?
Yep, I'm a giant moth...and the leaves! Oh, the leaves of coleus are my flame!
I mean, who cares that coleus has small, insignificant flowers? What coleus lacks in flower power it makes up for with pizzazz and downright designer style! And (as if you need more to convince you!), it's also such an easy annual to grow and it's super-dooper-looper (my PA friends should appreciate that phrase!) easy to propagate from seeds and cuttings too.
Are you feeling the coleus love here?
So ...to celebrate coleus ("Year of" or not!), I've decided to greatly expand my coleus pallet this year and try to grow some more exotic and interesting colors and patterns.... blacks, purples, reds, browns, greens, golds, yellows, oranges and everything in between. I think you should too!
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