BOOK REVIEW

By

Paula Szilard


Rogers, Ray.  Coleus:  Rainbow Foliage for Containers and Gardens.  Portland, OR:  Timber Press, 2008.  226p.


This genus of tropical mint family plants is experiencing a major renaissance.  It has fallen out of favor after enjoying a surge of popularity in the 1950’s and 1960’s.  Now it’s back again as gardeners have come to appreciate its fabulous foliage colors, variety of leaf shapes, virtually effortless cultivation and ease of propagation. Its rainbow foliage is particularly striking when plants are pruned into treelike standards, with clouds of outrageous color seeming to float above the stem. 

Coleus was first found in Java by botanist Karl Blume, hence the name Coleus blumei.  Today botanists think what Blume found was not a species, but a naturally occurring hybrid.  Coleus first became known in England in the mid 1850’s, where it quickly became a Victorian favorite.  Rogers uses the more familiar name, Coleus for this genus, now officially Solenostemon, which becomes a real tongue twister when you add the species name--Solenostemon scutellariodes. No wonder the old name seems to stick!



Ray Rogers is a garden writer, lecturer and a longtime Coleus grower.  According to Rogers, the plants we grow today are likely hybrids resulting from crosses of naturally occurring species and hybrids over the last hundred years.  To illustrate the readiness with which it crosses, you only have to look at one of the most attractive cultivars in the contemporary repertoire, ‘Smallwoods Driveway,’ a cultivar rarely available in the trade.  I happened upon it by chance in an article in the magazine, Traditional Home (October 2007) on Landcraft Environments Ltd, a Long Island nursery for tropical plants.  This plant is a wimpy grower and as I write this, it is ailing.  It has gorgeous, almost palmate, twisted leaves with deep, tight scalloping, and in good light it features splashes of dark and light pink on a pale yellow-green, occasionally almost cream background.  It started its life as a chance seedling in the driveway of Smallwoods Greenhouse Nursery in Amelia, Virginia and its parentage is a mystery


This book is everything that a book on Coleus should be and more—full of sound horticultural advice and color photos throughout, in particular in the second section of the book, which is an encylopedia of coleus cultivars with chapters on trailing cultivars, plants with distinctive leaf shapes and sizes, cultivars by color and pattern, unique cultivars and seed strains.  This arrangement is useful in identifying varieties. Rogers covers an amazing number of cultivars, occasionally featuring two photographs, showing the cultivar grown in high light and again in lower light. Coleuses, after all, are like chameleons and light levels make an enormous difference in their coloration.

While the rare coleus ‘Smallwoods Driveway’ is included, Coleus ‘Splashdown,’ my second favorite, a chartreuse green splashed with burgundy, is omitted.  Recently introduced varieties, such as the giant-leaved ‘Kongs’ are included, as well as standbys such as ‘Alabama Sunset.’  The fingered varieties, such as ‘Inky Fingers’ and other cultivars are also represented, as are the twisted leaf shapes with deep, tight, almost fingerlike scalloping.  Rogers also presents a whole chapter of detailed instructions for creating coleus standards, pruning plants into tree-like shapes with clouds of colorful foliage. Considering what these standards cost in garden shops, this chapter alone is worth the price of the book.


To lovers of coleus, the renewed popularity of this plant is no mystery. It offers unceasing color in shady sites, where large masses of intense, vibrant color are hard to come by. Horticulturist and photographer Richard Hartlage has done a commendable job in transposing this vibrant color onto the printed page with hundreds of beautiful photographs of more than 225 Coleus varieties.


Ray Rogers has definitely done his part to advance the appreciation of these wonderful plants, not only with this book, but also in his efforts to found a Coleus Society.  (Already a website is available:  www.coleus.society.org)



Paula Szilard