Indoor Gardening and Houseplants: Coleus from Seed, 1 by kdjoergensen

kdjoergensen wrote:
Coleus is one of the easiest annual plant seeds to grow (if you can manage to plant them.. with the seeds being black and round like poppy seeds, they can roll away if you are not carefull). They germinate for me at almost any temperature (within reason) which means I do not have to dedicate the heatmat to these.

I second the comments above, once you transplant the seedlings, they put on a growth spurt. They will sit in the cotyledon stage (e.g. with the two small round leaves) for what appear to be an eternity. But once the first true leaves develop, they will shoot out.

Just one note of caution. Especially the larger vareities, you should not cramp. Make sure you have enough space under the light that you can transplant to larger pots and spread them out so they do not touch. There is nothing worse than overgrown coleus, but on the other hand, these coleus do very well if pinched back a few times (it really makes them look nice).

Initially, they require relatively little water, but once the true leaves start going and they grow bigger, don't be surprised if you have to water A LOT. I like to transplant to real potting soil after a 3-4 weeks because if I don't I always end up damaging the plants by not watering frequently enough. If you draught stress a coleus, it will drop the leaves (aaaahhhhh !!!!)