Coleus is an annual perennial that thrives best when cultivated as houseplants. Providing a moist growing medium, enough light, on-time pruning, consistent watering, and humid temperature along with monthly fertilization will help your coleus plant to flourish and turn bushy.

Get Bushy Fuller Coleus: Prune your coleus occasionally to get the desired shape will prevent leggy coleus and stop the stem from growing lengthy. This encourages new shoots and lateral growths, resulting in a voluminous fuller coleus.
Also, make sure your coleus gets more bright indirect sunlight and even direct sun in the morning hours is okay. Lack of sunlight is one of the main reasons for most plants to grow leggy in search of light. Don’t leave your coleus plants in direct sunlight for long as it can reduce your plant’s lush and bright appearance.
Even sometimes afternoon scorching sun can burn the leaves or make the leaves lose color and look faded and dull. So if you want to place your coleus on the windows, go for east and north side windows to get morning sunlight.
To keep colors from fading off, provide monthly feed for your potted coleus. As watering each time washes the previous strength away. Also, don’t overcare and overwater which again results in droopy and washed-out looking coleus. Scroll more for detailed care and fast-growing tips for a fuller plant.

Intro

Coleus is a super attractive ornamental shrub or herb. This species can grow with tuberous rootstocks as well as a succulent sometimes. Native to tropical and subtropical areas it belongs to the Lamiaceae family.

However, these are not the only requirements you have to supply to a growing coleus shrub. There are other fundamental segments you should look after to grow a fully thriving coleus plant in your house, and these are as follows-

Table of Contents

How to Make Coleus Bushy?

Coleus is an eye-catchy decorative plant with big variegated foliage. This plant seems pretty with an eternal bushy form. Like any other ornamental shrub, coleus also appears striking with more and more leaves.

So, let’s find out how you can encourage your growing plant to produce more shoots, stems, and leaves rapidly to turn bushier in the shortest period-

Do Pruning:

Pruning is the best and most effective way to encourage new shoots to emerge
Trim your plant once a week or twice a month, after it reaches a mature form
And pinch the tip off every time after pruning the old stems and leaves out of your plant

Take Care of Fertilization:

Feed your plant weekly during the peak growing months
Use any commercial fertilizer in liquid dilute form
Keep the nitrogen content always high in your chosen fertilizer

Provide Enough Light:

Coleus plants can’t stand the full sun or direct sunlight
So, place your plant where it can get bright but indirect light
You can put your pot in a full shade area though, but make sure it has at least some amount of light per week

Choose a Good Potting Mix/Soil:

To get the best thriving form of your plant, you must offer it a good growing medium
So, always pick soil that is fully fertile and can drain very well
Make sure your soil has a slightly acidic pH level to provide the best effect on the roots

Accurate Watering:

Coleus plants are not drought-tolerant thus, you must keep them averagely moist
Keep the soil continently moist but never soggy but watering 1-inch per week
Always use distilled water and let the soil get dry between watering

Offering The Right Climate:

You must provide this plant with a cool to mediumly warm climate to thrive
Make sure the temperature level stays between 50° to 70° F
And keep the humidity level of the room always high during the entire growing session

Propagating:

Finally, propagate from the main trunk of a growing coleus plant often
This way you can give you’re a consistent pruning session and reuse the trimmed branches well
You can also propagate multiple trimmed stems at a single planter to give them an artificial bushy form

Also read: Why coleus is losing leaves?

Why is My Coleus Losing Color?

This bantam plant produces bold and multicolored foliage with a mild fragrance. Its leaves grow with various vibrant colors including red, pink, yellow, green, maroon, etc.

The foliage of the coleus plant thrives with a bright center color that might be emphasized with lightly tinted edges. But, sometimes a little negligence in their daily routine can bring a dull and colorless condition to your variegated plant. Fortunately, we have some effective solutions to such problems and they are-

Reasons for losing color:

Over-sun exposure indicates you may put your planter in a sunny spot with full sun exposure
Drought stress means you may keep your plant underwatered for more than two to three weeks
Overwatering means you must water your plant too frequently without letting the soil dry enough or allowing the soil to turn soggy
Temperature issue, it prefers that you don’t place your plant in a room with a stable mediumly warm temperature or the temperature of the room is too cool or too high
Poor soil means you pick heavily rich or clay-based or highly alkaline soil with a poor drainage system for the plantation
Wrong fertilization like when you feed your plant unnecessarily or don’t fertilize it at all for a longer period

How to fix:

Provide your plant bright but indirect light and make sure it can have 6-7 hours of light daily
Never keep your plant underwatered for long or let the soil completely dry ever
Always use potting mix and pot with good draining systems and stop watering more than once a week
Never let your plant get exposed to a temperature that is higher than 75° F or lower than 40° F
Pick a potting mix that is moderately fertile, balanced, and with proper pH balance
Always feed your plant with a liquid dilute the fertilizer and water the plant before the fertilization

Also Read: Best plants for hanging pots

How To Make My Coleus Grow Faster and Bigger?

Letting your plant grow naturally is undoubtedly a smart idea but, what if you can stimulate its natural growth rate affectedly? Well, fortunately, some effective ways work optimally to give your plant a bigger and fuller form in the fastest way. Here we refer to the best tricks in this attempt-

Offer Your Plant Perfect Sunlight:

Offering your plant, a perfect amount of sunlight means providing them the right amount of light every day
Remember that 5-6 hours of bright light in a normal season and 2-3 hours of light in winter is enough to keep a coleus plant healthy

Fertilize Them Regularly:

Feed your plant every 23-25 days during the growing season with a high-nitrogen fertilizer
To keep the dilute form ideal, mix a spoonful of fertilizer in a 19-19-19 NPK ratio in a mug of clear water and apply it at the base of your plant

Keep Debris Free:

Keep the base and around of your plant weeds free or dead foliage free
Try to prune your plant once a week during the heavy growing months to keep it well organized

Protect From Insects:

Spider mites, mealybugs, whiteflies, aphids, etc. are some common insects you can around your plant
Try to give your plant a good rinse with homemade insecticide solution once a month

Water Adequately:

Keep your plant consistently moist but soggy ever by watering only 1-inch depth per week
Let the excess water drain at the bottom and the soil at least 40% dry between watering

So, these are the best possible ways to get the best thriving form out of your plant in the quickest manner.

Also read: Plants with variegated leaves

FAQ: Why is My Coleus Dying?

The most typical reason for a dying coleus plant is root rot due to a poor draining system. You should keep the root healthy through a properly draining growing medium.

What is the Main cause of Stunt Growth in a Coleus Plant?

Not-treated pests and diseases are probably the most common cause of the stunted growth of a coleus plant. if you don’t want to face this biggest fear of a growing coleus plant, keep it protected from any kind of diseases or insect infestations.

My Coleus is Losing Color: Grow Faster & Bushy Plant (How to Fix)