Coleus

recently made the mistake of telling my husband how much my variegated Swiss cheese plants could sell for. The bout of aroid fever gripping the houseplant world has placed these plants at a premium, I explained, meaning my pair of ‘Thai Constellation’ would be a steal at around £150 each. Like any craze, it’s about supply and demand: variegated monsteras are rare, so people, on the other hand, must rate as one of the cheapest ways to bring colour to your indoor display. There are hundreds of culitvars in every shade from the sublime to the ridiculous: lemon yellow, lime green, carmine pink, zesty orange and the inkiest purple-black (the flowers, an insignificant pale purple, should be removed on sight as they sap the plant’s energy). And yet coleus had their own gold rush, too. I was fascinated to read in Dr Catherine Horwood’s brilliant book that a dozen new coleus hybrids sold at auction by the RHS in 1868 went for £390 – quite a sum back then.