The year of the coleus

It seems that every year has one standout type of plant in my garden. This year it was the coleus, and particularly the newer sun-loving coleus. 

Coleus has always been a favorite of mine in my shade garden. It grows well, provides a lot of color, and it lasts until the end of the season pretty well. I was a bit skeptical of the sun loving variety of coleus when it first came out, but I tried some in the past and they have done pretty well. It may be sun loving but it does still require a lot of water. It's sun loving but not very drought tolerant. If you miss a day when it should have been watered it wilts down and looks desperate. Actually that's a pretty good survival mechanism because it causes me to administer water immediately and it bounces back very well and very quickly. 

This year my coleus plants, and particularly the sun loving ones, have just been spectacular, "exceeding all expectations" if you will forgive me for using that hackneyed and much hated phrase. A lot of the garden has probably passed its peak point of beauty for the summer, but the coleus is still going strong. 

It's been hard to pick a favorite of the sun loving coleus, but think this may be it.

The coleus completely took over whatever pot they were in and pushed

out to crowd or cover other elements in the garden as well. 

This is some shade coleus, also very pretty.

Like the sun loving variety, the shade coleus planted here also grew to cover up

many of the other plants I had in these pots.

This rust color is a close runner up for my favorite this year.

It has ruffled edges as well as beautiful color and sturdy growth.

More shade stuff, but I loved this one because it looks like a big bouquet in a vase.

It doesn't show too well in this picture, but the leaves of this shade lover are rimmed in gold.

Not a coleus pic, and you can't actually see the planter, 

but this is an old cast iron cauldron that belonged to my great-grandmother.

I brought it back from my mother's garden last year and it became the centerpiece

of my new shade garden. I think she'd be very happy with it.

This is probably my favorite garden spot this year. I was really happy with the way the 

white fence dressed it up. I now have a proper shade garden as well as a hosta bed.

I'm also very happy with the nighttime flamingo garden.