Coleus ‘Fishnet Stockings’

* Common name: Coleus ‘Fishnet Stockings’

* Botanical name: Solenostemon scutellarioides ‘Fishnet Stockings’

* What it is: A warm-weather annual plant grown for its showy foliage. It’s hard to go wrong with most any coleus these days, but this one has curious, attractive leaves of lime-green with heavy burgundy etching, almost as if an artist has meticulously drawn them. To the plant’s namer, the look is like fishnet stockings.

* Size: 24 to 30 inches tall with an 18-inch spread.

* Where to use: Flower pots or window boxes or in the ground in foundation beds. Part shade is ideal, but ‘Fishnet Stockings’ also can take full sun or full shade, although the color will be less intense there and the plants “leggier.”

* Care: Plant after all danger of frost in mid to late May. Check water daily in pots. In the ground, water twice weekly in the first six weeks, then weekly if the weather is dry. Work compost and timed-release flower fertilizer into soil at planting. Supplemental in-season fertilizer usually not needed in the ground, but pot-grown ones appreciate an occasional boost. Yank and compost when frost kills them.

* Great partner: Vigorous and showy enough to stand alone, but pairs nicely with any red- or burgundy-leaf coleus. In a pot, use gold-leaf sweet potato vine to trail down around it. Or pair with gold or yellow annuals, such as marigolds, dwarf celosia, million bells, dwarf zinnias or mecardonia.