Updated on September 7, 2026. Ratings below are university browse lists, not a six-pack tag. Confirm local herd pressure before you fill a shade bed with Kong coleus and call it deer-proof.
Sometimes. Deer eat coleus. They are not “deer candy” on the level of hostas or tulips, and they are not a mint-family force field. Iowa State Extension, compiling Rutgers, Cornell, and Michigan State surveys, lists Coleus spp. as occasionally severely damaged — the same annuals column as impatiens and petunias. University of Georgia Circular 985 puts coleus on the “occasionally or frequently browse — protection recommended” table. Minnesota’s deer-resistant annuals table includes wax begonia, marigold, zonal geranium, and blue salvia. Coleus is not on it. North Carolina State’s plant toolbox still says the species is “seldom damaged by deer,” and it tags the same page both deer resistant and deer browsing plant. That split is the story: a square-stem mint that is not aromatic, with succulent leaves a suburban doe will take when the hostas are gone. For color they usually skip, use the deer-proof garden hub and the deer-resistant annuals list — not a ColorBlaze tag sold as deer-proof.
| Plant | Garden coleus is Coleus scutellarioides (painted nettle). Older tags say Coleus blumei, Solenostemon scutellarioides, or Plectranthus scutellarioides. Same plant. Mint family (Lamiaceae): square stems, opposite leaves. Grown for foliage, not the blue-violet flower spikes. |
|---|---|
| Verdict | Occasionally browsed. Fence it, hang it above the browse line, or plant something else. Sun-tolerant ColorBlaze / Main Street / FlameThrower series are light ratings, not deer ratings. Kong is a shade rating, not a deer rating. |
| University rating | Iowa State (July 2022): Coleus spp. occasionally damaged. UGA C985 (full review Feb. 1, 2016): on the protect-these list. Minnesota: not on the resistant-annuals table. NC State toolbox: “seldom damaged by deer.” Rutgers’ searchable 527-plant list does not currently carry a dedicated Coleus row; Iowa’s compiled list is the one that cites Rutgers as a source. |
| What they eat, when | Succulent stems and the colored leaves — the whole show. Flower spikes are insignificant and get taken with the rest. Peak is after soil warms past 60°F until the first cold night, which kills coleus before a lot of other annuals. Raids track deer feeding times. |
| Where it is worst | Unfenced shade beds under trees — the same travel lanes that empty hostas. Porch-rail baskets at four feet. Whiskey barrels at muzzle height. Irrigated ColorBlaze in a sun bed still reads as watered succulent tissue. |
| Official sheets | Iowa State — deer damage · UGA Circular 985 · Minnesota — white-tailed deer damage · NC State — Coleus scutellarioides · Minnesota — growing coleus |
Why the lists disagree
Coleus is in the mint family. Rosemary, garden sage, and lavender sit in Iowa’s herbs-rarely-damaged column because those plants are aromatic. NC State’s coleus profile is blunt on the stem: not aromatic. Square stems and opposite leaves do not make a deer walk past a watered 18-inch mound of thin, succulent tissue. That is the heuristic that puts “deer resistant” on a nursery tag and “occasionally severely damaged” on the browse surveys.
NC State still writes “this plant is seldom damaged by deer” and lists deer under resistance-to-challenges. The same profile carries the deer browsing plant tag. Iowa, citing Rutgers, Cornell, and Michigan State, files it with impatiens. UGA tells Georgia gardeners to protect it. Minnesota’s damage page builds a resistant-annuals table from toxicity, fragrance, and texture; coleus does not make that table. Treat the NC State line as “often skipped in a mixed Piedmont bed,” not as a guarantee for a New Jersey or Twin Cities shade strip.
Rutgers’ public A–D list is 527 plants. A search for coleus does not return a dedicated row. Iowa’s compiled list is the honest citation when someone says “Rutgers rates coleus.” Do not invent a letter grade the searchable list does not show.
What you are actually buying
Minnesota’s growing sheet (reviewed 2026) is the ID you need before you read a deer list. Coleus is grown for foliage, not flowers. Plants run 6 to 36 inches, often nearly as wide as tall. Native range is tropical and subtropical Asia into northern Australia; NC State names Southeast Asia and Malaysia, plus tropical Africa. In USDA zones 10–11 it can behave as a tender perennial. Everywhere with frost it is an annual. Minnesota: it is very cold sensitive and will be the first annual hit by a cold overnight low. The first hard frost finishes it. There is no fleshy crown waiting underground the way there is on a hosta.
Historically it was a Victorian shade plant. Newer series take sun. Minnesota’s West Central Research and Outreach Center trials in Morris rated Heartbreaker, the Main Street series, ColorBlaze®, and FlameThrower® good to excellent in sun or shade. Kong® is the full-shade series. NC State’s 2019 annual color trials put ColorBlaze Wicked Witch second in in-ground plantings. Those are performance and light ratings. They are not deer ratings. Iowa’s hanging-basket tables list trailing Coleus scutellarioides for both sun and shade — which is how a porch-rail basket ends up at muzzle height.
Iowa: start seed 8 to 10 weeks before the outdoor date. Minnesota: do not set plants out until soil is above 60°F; space about 12 inches; pinch flower stalks. Cuttings of 4 to 6 inches root in water in 2 to 3 weeks. None of that changes the browse column.
What they eat, and when
A deer has no upper incisors. It grasps and tears. On coleus you get ragged stubs and missing leaves, often overnight — the colored foliage is the meal, not a flower cluster. UGA’s deer circular is blunt about why fertilized landscape plants get hit: deer like nutrition-rich browse, and they get about a third of their water from irrigated, succulent tissue. A watered 12- to 36-inch coleus mound is exactly that, in shade or in sun.
Hanging baskets help only above the browse line. A porch-rail basket at four feet is still in range. Minnesota notes deer can clear as much as 12 feet when motivated, which is why an 8-foot woven-wire fence is the number on the damage pages — see how high a deer can jump. Coleus is a tender annual. Stubs in July are done for the year unless enough stem remains to leaf out, and only until frost.
Deer damage vs rabbits vs downy mildew
Do not treat every collapsed coleus as a deer. The fixes are different.
- Deer. Ragged, torn stems. Whole clumps gone overnight. Browse can sit above two feet on a basket. Heart-shaped prints and pellet groups. Minnesota: deer damage looks rough or shredded, not cleanly clipped.
- Rabbit. A neat 45-degree cut, usually within a foot of the ground. Iowa’s rabbit-annuals table (August 2022) does not currently carry a dedicated coleus row either way. University of Maryland Extension, answering a Montgomery County gardener in July 2022 (Ask Extension #801434), documented rabbits stripping two large pots of coleus to bare stems overnight and said rabbits will eat coleus; chicken-wire around the containers is the fix, and protected stalks can leaf out again until frost. Hardware cloth stops rabbits, not deer. Tactics: how to keep rabbits from eating plants.
- Downy mildew. First identified on U.S. coleus in New York and Louisiana in 2005, widespread by 2006. The pathogen is the water mold Peronospora belbahrii (sometimes listed as Peronospora sp.). Angular spots, twisted young leaves, violet-gray fuzz on the underside, then leaf drop. No torn stubs. No hoof prints. Cool, humid nights (roughly 59–68°F, humidity over 85 percent) favor it. A sun-tolerant series is a light and disease-management choice. It is not a deer rating.
NC State also flags low-severity contact dermatitis from the leaves (diterpene coleonol / coleon O): a short-lived red rash after repeated handling. That chemistry is for gardeners, not a deer deterrent. Iowa’s impatiens growing sheet (April 2024) names coleus as a shade-tolerant swap after impatiens downy mildew — and files coleus in the same occasionally-damaged deer column as the impatiens it is replacing.
Where it is worst
This is a suburban eastern and midwestern shade-bed problem. High-density white-tailed deer towns — New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, Michigan, northern Virginia, the Twin Cities collar — are where a Kong carpet disappears in one night. Georgia Extension put coleus on the browse list for the same reason Atlanta woods-edge yards get hit. Wild diet is still browse, mast, and agriculture; that menu is on what do deer eat. A ColorBlaze Wicked Witch at an oak drip line is a fertilized annual on a deer trail, which is why deer as pests sits next to this page.
The calendar is a summer window. Coleus goes out after soil hits 60°F and stays succulent until the first cold night knocks it down — often earlier than impatiens. Ground beds at the tree line fail first. Hostas resprout from a crown. Coleus does not.
What works
Physical exclusion first. Minnesota: a 50 percent cut in browse is a success; 30 percent is more typical if you only spray. For a shade bed that is the whole show, that is not enough.
- Fence the bed, not the cultivar. Eight-foot woven wire around a small garden works. A 50-inch micro-exclosure only a few feet on a side can also work, because deer dislike stepping into a tight box. Details: how to keep deer out of the garden.
- Hang them honestly high. Second-story hooks survive. Four-foot porch rails and whiskey barrels do not. Iowa lists trailing coleus for hanging baskets; height is the defense, not the trailing habit.
- Egg-based repellent on a schedule. Putrescent egg solids are the ingredient Minnesota still takes seriously. Spray before the first browse, reapply after rain, rotate products. Formulas: organic deer repellent.
- Swap the shade niche. Iowa names wax begonia, torenia, caladium, and coleus as impatiens-mildew alternatives. Coleus sits in Iowa’s occasionally-damaged deer column with impatiens, so treat it as maybe better, not proof. Wax begonia is the one Minnesota puts on the resistant table. Shade annuals: deer-resistant annuals.
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What does not work
A tag that says “deer-resistant coleus.” ColorBlaze, Main Street, FlameThrower, and Kong were bred for sun, shade, or leaf pattern, not for a suburban doe with fawns. A mint-family argument. NC State’s own stem field says the plant is not aromatic. A ring of marigolds around an unfenced shade bed. Hair, soap, mothballs, ultrasonic gadgets — Minnesota lists hair, soap, mothballs, and bone tar as untested home remedies. A 4-foot picket around an 18-inch plant is theater. Feeding the herd to “distract” them trains them to the property; what to feed backyard deer is the page that says don’t. Do not use impatiens as the mildew-and-deer swap. Iowa names coleus as a shade-tolerant alternative to diseased impatiens, and files both in the same occasionally-damaged deer column.
Three substitutes that already have pages
- Ferns — Iowa State: nearly all ferns are rarely damaged. Same shade the Kong series wanted. Ostrich, cinnamon, Christmas, lady, and Japanese painted ferns are the usual garden set.
- Zonal geraniums (Pelargonium × hortorum) — on Minnesota’s resistant list. They want more sun than a classic coleus shade bed. Use them where the shade breaks. Iowa still files Pelargonium as occasionally damaged, so this is the better of two imperfect columns, not a wall.
- Salvia — Iowa State: seldom damaged. Minnesota lists blue salvia (Salvia farinacea) with the resistant annuals. That is the mint-family plant the coleus tag was pretending to be.
True-shade flowers without a child URL yet: wax begonia and wishbone/torenia, both on the resistant-annuals page. Marigolds cover the sunny edge. The short flower shortlist is what flowers deer do not eat.
Related plants in the same yard
If deer found the coleus, they have already walked the rest of the shade strip. Hostas go first. Hydrangeas sit on UGA’s protect-these list. Impatiens share Iowa’s occasionally-damaged annuals column and the same shade bed. Petunias and pansies go when the light opens up. Do not cage one basket and leave a hosta mound next to it. Layout and cost: how to keep deer from eating plants. Wild diet for the animal is what a white-tailed deer eats.
FAQ
Are ColorBlaze or Kong coleus more deer-proof than Wizard?
Not on any university list we cite. ColorBlaze, Main Street, and FlameThrower take more sun. Kong is the deep-shade leaf. Wizard is the old seed series. Those are light and habit ratings. Iowa still files the genus as occasionally damaged. Treat sun-tolerant coleus as bleach insurance, not deer insurance.
Will coleus grow back after deer eat it?
Only if enough stem remains, and only this season. They are tender annuals in most states. Minnesota: the first cold overnight low knocks them down before a lot of other bedding plants. Stubs in July: replant or wait for side shoots. Hostas resprout. Coleus does not come back from a crown.
Do hanging baskets keep deer off coleus?
Only above the browse line, on a structure a deer cannot stand on. A railing basket is a snack. So is a whiskey barrel. Iowa lists trailing coleus for hanging baskets because it looks good there, not because deer cannot reach a porch rail.
Is coleus deer-resistant because it is in the mint family?
No. Garden sage, rosemary, and lavender are aromatic mints Iowa files as rarely damaged. NC State’s coleus profile marks the stem as not aromatic. Succulent, watered foliage is what the browse lists are scoring. Use the Iowa / UGA column, not the family name on the tag.
Sources
- Iowa State Extension — Susceptibility of Plants to Deer Damage (Coleus spp. occasionally damaged; sources include Rutgers, Cornell, Michigan State; last reviewed July 2022)
- Iowa State Extension — Growing Impatiens in the Home Garden (coleus named as a shade-tolerant alternative after impatiens downy mildew; last reviewed April 2024)
- Iowa State Extension — Creating and Growing Hanging Baskets (trailing and upright Coleus scutellarioides listed for sun and for shade)
- Iowa State Extension — Can I start my seeds indoors yet? (coleus 8–10 weeks indoors; January 2026)
- UGA Extension Circular 985 — Deer-Tolerant Ornamental Plants (Coleus spp. on the protect-these list; irrigated plants supply about one-third of a deer’s water; full review Feb. 1, 2016)
- University of Minnesota Extension — White-tailed deer damage (coleus not on the resistant-annuals table; 8-foot fence; 12-foot jump; 50 percent / 30 percent reduction; reviewed 2026)
- University of Minnesota Extension — Coleus (6–36 in.; soil above 60°F; pH 6–7; 12-inch spacing; seed 8 weeks, 10–20 days at 70–75°F; cuttings 4–6 in. in 2–3 weeks; Kong shade, ColorBlaze / Main Street / FlameThrower / Heartbreaker sun or shade; first hit by cold nights; reviewed 2026)
- NC State Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox — Coleus scutellarioides (formerly C. blumei, Plectranthus, Solenostemon; 6 in.–3 ft; zones 10–11; stem not aromatic; “seldom damaged by deer”; also tagged deer-browsing plant; contact dermatitis from diterpene coleonol / coleon O)
- Rutgers NJAES — Landscape Plants Rated by Deer Resistance (A–D scale; no plant is deer-proof; no dedicated coleus row in the current 527-plant search; Iowa’s compiled list cites this survey)
- Ask Extension — rabbits ate all leaves off coleus in a pot #801434 (Montgomery County, Maryland, July 2022: rabbits stripped potted coleus to stems)
- Iowa State Extension — Susceptibility of Plants to Rabbit Damage (no dedicated coleus row; last reviewed August 2022)
This is a child of the deer-proof garden guide. Wild browse, not the shade six-pack, is on what deer eat.
