Is Coleus deer resistant?

Grown entirely for leaf color, and the newer sun-tolerant series changed it from a shade-only plant into a bedding staple. Pinch the flower spikes out as they form, because flowering makes the plant leggy and the leaves smaller. Cuttings root in water in about a week, so a favorite can be kept indefinitely.

Do deer eat coleus?

Sometimes. NC State's entry says "this plant is seldom damaged by deer" and then tags it under both deer resistant and deer browsing, which is the plant toolbox's way of recording that the answer varies. Rutgers puts coleus in Occasionally Severely Damaged, the third tier, alongside impatiens and wax begonia; in a shaded bed it sits with them at browsing height and its leaves are just as soft. In a light year it is left alone. In a heavy one the colored foliage it is grown for is exactly what goes.

Protecting coleus

Pots on a porch step are inside the traffic the third tier relies on; a bed at the woodland edge is not. For a bed, the 20 percent egg spray Colorado State rates High, reapplied in about thirty days through the summer. The sun-tolerant series above do not change the deer rating, only the light.

Does coleus grow back?

Quickly, from the leaf nodes, the same way it branches when the flower spikes are pinched out. A plant browsed in July is refilled by August. NC State's hardiness range is zones 10 to 11, so nothing overwinters outdoors north of Florida whether the deer find it or not, and the cuttings-in-water habit above is how a favorite survives both.