The Garden Soil being too rich for the Coleus.

Coleus can easily be started from seed indoors about 10 weeks before the last frost date in your region. Removing some of the plant's branches is recommended to prevent the coleus becoming top-heavy, and in order to shape it attractively. The small flowers are pinched off … If it’s not maintained, it could overgrow and branches can snap from their weight. Around midsummer, coleus should be pruned regardless of whether it will be allowed to flower. Coleus belong to the mint family and grow vigorously.

Coleus is also fun propagate; new plants grown from seed will be new creations. Feel free to pinch them back at the leaf nodes – this is where the leaves emerge from the stem. Here are the basic pruning strategies commonly used for coleus: To encourage coleus to grow straight, pinch off the side branches, but not the leaves growing directly on the stem. Visualize the shape you’d like and pinch it back accordingly. Different varieties of coleus brighten the garden with shades of green, red, pink, burgundy, yellow or orange.
Now that my Coleus have been planted and are taking root and starting to grow, what do I have to do to keep them from getting to straggly?
(When this happens, the leaves lose beauty and vigor.) Pinch often to encourage branching. Keep your plants pinched back so they stay bushy rather than leggy, for a more gorgeous display. However, there can be some side effects. Xuling This means that when you pinch a plant, you are removing the main stem, forcing the plant to grow two new stems from the leaf nodes below the pinch or cut.

Prune the coleus. For example, threadleaf coreopsis plants are suitable for deadheading by pinching, but the great quantity of buds and their close proximity to one another on the stem can make pinching coreopsis a nightmare. May 3, 2015 - Coleus plants first arrived in the Americas in the 1800s and ever since have been known and loved for their colorful leaves. Remove coleus flowers if you want the plants to keep their shape. Different varieties of coleus brighten the garden with shades of green, red, pink, burgundy, yellow or orange. Fertilize in mid-summer with a liquid fertilizer at half the recommended strength. You can also pinch just under the coleus’s flower buds if you don’t want the plant’s energy to be spent on producing flowers and seeds. Pot size: 12″ Patio Pot Black.

To maintain the bushy nature of Coleus, pinch back the long shoots to the base of the stem.

And where do I pinch?