Also called the ‘Scaredy Cat’ plant - keeps cats from pooping in your garden - they don’t like the smell.
My mom used to grow Coleus, but never the anti-cat ones. When we were growing up, the neighborhood cats used our sandbox for their toilet & left mom’s flower beds alone.
There are some absolutely gorgeous varieties of Coleus. I always thought of them as shade plants, but some varieties are more sun tolerant. I think I have a good spot for Coleus, but it will be next year before I can plant them.
Yes, the Coleus canina Hybrid plants @ Menards are marketed as exactly that: Repellent for a wide range of animals. Reading online, just how effective that might be seems to be quite open for debate. Bringing one inside, the odor was detectable it did NOT stink up the kitchen. My wife cooks a couple of Filipino foods that are about 1000x times as repulsive smelling to me, but, that doesn’t mean much: Our cats seem undeterred by them. Granted, they don’t seem to mind even the worst of my “#2’s” “fragrance” before the exhaust fan takes care of that, um, problem.
Anyway, we’ll see if these Coleus canina Hybrid plants do any good, and, if so, possibly I can collect seeds from them. I’m still not sure what “semi-hardy means...
I forgot to add: Back 10 years ago, roughly, we put a different variety of coleus in our flower garden, one year. They can indeed be quite attractive. :-)