Coleus with spider

Our house has a north-facing window in the living room and we like to keep window boxes just outside. Since it doesn't get direct sun, we've often planted impatiens out there. They provide a lush green and colorful blooms in the summer. A few years ago, our local garden shop stopped carrying impatiens because their crop apparently got some disease. So we turned to coleus for the north side window boxes.

Our coleus beginning to flower. There's a white crab spider hiding on the stalk at the very top among the flowers.

The coleus provide nice color outside the window from spring through fall. And we've found that they're easy to root from cuttings for more plants. If we're careful, we can keep them going indoors through the winter for another spring crop.

By the way, Ken and I do not consult on our daily blog posts. When we do the same thing, it's purely by coincidence. I just noticed, after I published this post, that Ken has a photo of the same plant on his blog today. Cue Twilight Zone theme music...