Great site, thanks for the link.
Also, google for 'glasshouse works online'. They also have a huge collection of the coleus's old and new.
I believe I have a nice 3x3 mat of the duckfoot you described and I also have a more dark burgundy with magenta accents that has spread over a 6' width of a shady border and it has grown nearly 3' high. That's the one I need to take cuttings of and hold for next spring.

In the Coleus Finder, when you look to the right of the named cultivar, there is a website listed for the place the image came from (cool site for glasshouse works is one of them - thanks!). There are 34 retail and wholesale sites from which the images and info are culled. I'll also print my wish list images and names to take with me to nurseries next spring when I go Coleus hunting, as I get so frustrated when the website listed is wholesale only.

'Black Knight' and 'Camouflage' are very similar, and I am sure there are lots of other "freckled duck coleuses" out there. What fun! Talked to Jeff Bottoms yesterday at Cedar Creek Gallery. He noted that these annuals are great to mix in with perennials for a mid-summer punch when the early perenns are done and the late ones haven't started blooming. Isn't that a great idea?

I've already snipped a dozen tips for rooting my 'Black Knight', and now I'm going to attack the sun coleus my friend Phyllis shared with me this summer to see if they overwinter. My Sun Room will be filled with color this winter for sure!

I have tried many times to sow mixed Coleus seeds and all I ever get is the floppy big-leaf green-edged burgundy which is way down on the list of my favorites. I'd surely love some of those copper colored ones - would go so well with my violent-violet purple flowering plants. And the very dark purple Coleus would punch up my yelling-yellow flowering plants. And, hmmm, mixing some of the green and white with my striped zebra grass would be wild! See, I told you all this is fun!

Nancy

Next year, look for Sedona. It's my all time favorite. Intense copper with inner hues of purple, not splotches.
It grows in nice morning sun and dappled shade in the late afternoon and gets to about 4' tall.
I love interplanting coleus with daylilies and coleus around Miss Huff lantana which tends to get leggy if you don't keep it trimmed some before it starts to bloom.

I like to place Coleus 'Pineapple' next to my Eucomis 'Sparkling Burgundy' with some purple heart and reddish purple Alternathera thrown in for fun.

Every year I have a new favorite Coleus. They are very versatile group of plants.

Beware of named cultivar or varieties. When companies patent a color form of a highly variable and easily propagated plant such as coleus all sorts of bad things happen. Let's say someone patents a fancy leaf bold red coleus and names it 'Big Red'. Meanwhile other nurseries have their own very similar versions of Big Red - they are forbidden to sell them as Big Red because the real Big Red is protected - so they call theirs 'Large Ruby' even though the plants are basically the same. Another problem is when one nursery notices that Big Red is a good seller so they buy some stock plants and propagate without paying the fees to the patent holder (illegal), the only way they can sell their plants is to offer them under a different name. So they start selling Big Red under the name Large Ruby to avoid copyright infringment.

Don't get me wrong. I support the practice of patents applying to plants that people have worked hard on developing. But many plant companies are simply snatching up common perennials and claiming patent protections for them. If the plant is easy to propagate and is barely stable genetically than no patents should apply. Just my opinion.

That is a very good point TJ. I find it so easy to propagate a lot of plants that I wondered about the varieties offered with different names in the nurseries that look every bit like what I have under an original patented name that I paid good dollars for. (I keep a plant database and try to include the botanical name of what I share with others.) I did follow the long ago thread that it is OK to propagate plants to share without selling them (hooray for plant swaps!) and I would never consider renaming a plant to get around the patent (simply because I wouldn't sell them anyway). However, I wonder how many people propagate heirlooms and sell the plants (tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, etc.) and may never be aware that they were patented a hundred years ago? Again, to whom do the patent fees get paid and how?

And, the big question is still, "If my patented strawberries make runners and new plants, do I have to pay the original patent holder for the plant doing what comes naturally without my interjection?" And will he/she come around to collect? Am I supposed to dig up the runnered plants and destroy them because it is illegal for them to propagate themselves?

And, if fourteen thousand stores on the internet and eighty thousand local nurseries have Rudbeckia fulgida sullivantii "Goldsturm", how many have paid the originator the patent usage fee?

I agree with your comment that genetically unstable plants should not be patented but tell me, who gets to judge that?

I think I'll go lay down now in the middle of my totally un-patented wildflowers to soothe my weary brain.

I imagine its a lot like copyrights for artwork or photographs - there are no copyright police. You have to protect your work yourself. If you see someone infringing on your protected work you have to hire a lawyer and take legal action all by yourself.

I have seen warnings on patented plants that forbid any propagation for any reason, whether you were going to sell it or not.

Some plants like Artemesia 'Oriental Limelight' (I'm just guessing on the name and the spelling) were grown 100 years ago in gardens throughout the world. Now a company (I believe Proven Winners) claims to have developed it and holds the patent. Our grandmothers grew this plant under a different name so these new guys really just came up with a fancy name for an old garden standard. They claim to have improved it, enhanced the color and stabilized the mutation. Baloney!! it still reverts to green just like it always did and looks just like it did in old garden magazines.

Personally I believe that if they want to enforce the patent on their supposed creation they have every right to. The steps they take to promote the plant are successful and expensive. BUT, they shouldn't get to huffy should someone that knows the truth grows and sells a similar plant under a different name. Another example: the boldly colored 'Red Dragon' Persicaria is patented and easy to propagate. Now I see other colors are available under other "dragon" names, they are also patented. In my garden the Red Dragon mutates every once in a while and sends out a plant very similar to these new colors. How can they claim ownership of a color form that freely shows up in my garden?

Companies patent human genes, so it's not surprising that they would patent an old variety plant. As far as I know, there's not an ornamental plant that has been sequenced for patent purposes (only food crop genes), so it would be impossible for a company to prove a plant was the same with a different name. The patent protects the name, and thus the marketing, more than it protects the exact plant. Hey Nance, thought you didn't like red - except beautiful tree hubby gave you - what gives with liking coleus - are you selecting for lime-green?

Brenda - I still don't like red. I'm OK with dark burgundy which is more towards the purple I like, but real red - yuck. I am selecting all the lime green and cream coleus, looking for the copper color TJ uses (see me swoon), and deep greens with freckles that aren't red.
Thanks for the info about plant patenting - I swiped some orange berried pyracantha (the landscaper contractors would have chopped off the tall sprouts anyway!) and thought that I will never, ever, know the true name of it - patented or not. But I wish all those patenting people would wise up and deny patents on stuff that can't be DNA'd or gene identified. I think I'm going to go back to the species plants, like natives. They have real names and don't have inflated prices on them (mostly they just get swapped!).

Nance, dumb question from newbie tomatoe grower for you. How do you save the seeds from tomatoes?

Brenda - its gross and stinky you might wanna keep it far away from your garden. I don't mean Nance, I mean curing the seeds from ripe tomatoes. You dig out the pulp and let it rot in a plastic bag til it eats off the protective coating on the seeds. Smells something awful. Takes about two weeks.

I'm sorry for butting in. Today is a boring day at work so I've decided to respond to every single posting on Garden Web.