Beginner Gardening: Coleus seedlings, 2 by tapla

tapla wrote:
If it was mine, I would truncate the main stem just above the first pair of leaves, then pinch out the apical meristem of both sides of what's left. There would then be 2 pairs of leaves left. From each leaf axil, a new branch will form (4 of them), all of which I would pinch again after a new pair of leaves starts to form. This is how you maximize fullness/ramification.

To prepare the cutting that would be left, I would sever the stem with a fresh razor blade immediately below the proximal (bottom) node & prune all the leaves off the area around it and just the large leaves off the top node. If there are no smaller leaves growing from the top node, I would simply reduce the surface area of each of the large top leaves by cutting across leaf venation so about 25% of the surface area of each leaf remains attached to the cutting, then stick it in a damp (but not wet or soggy) medium in open shade.
Al



This message was edited Aug 21, 2015 8:45 PM