Plant in full coastal sun with occasional irrigation but best in dry light shade where it is somewhat protected from hard frost. In these conditions our garden plant survived undamaged our cold January 2007 frost (3 nights down to 25° F).

This plant in its native habitat is widespread from the Eastern Cape to northern KwaZulu-Natal north to the Mascarene Islands. It was reportedly first collected by Phlibert Commerson in Mauritius or Reunion Islands around 1775 but speculated that it must also be found in known from Madagascar as Christian Hendrik Persoon first described the plant as Ocimum madagascariensis in 1807 in Synopsis Plantarum and the specific name was retained after George Bentham later described it as Plectranthus hirtus in 1832 in Labiatarum Genera et Species. We first received this plant from a South African National Botanical Garden Kirstenbosch seed exchange in 1992 and though never offered it then for sale, planted the resulting plants in a dry (unirrigated) shade garden under a coast live oak, where it has persisted for over 20 years.

In 2018 Alan Paton, Head of Collections at the Royal Botanic Garden Kew, did a revision of Plectranthus and related plants (Paton, A.; Mwanyambo, M. & Culham, A. (2018). "Phylogenetic study of Plectranthus, Coleus and allies (Lamiaceae): Taxonomy, distribution and medicinal use". Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society. 188 (4): 355–376.). The new names were clarified in 2019 in an article titled "Nomenclatural changes in Coleus and Plectranthus (Lamiaceae): a tale of more than two genera" in PhytoKeys (PhytoKeys 129 (2019) which transferred many of the Plectranthus species, including this into the genus Coleus, making the valid name of this plant Coleus madagascariensis. The name Coleus comes from the Greek word 'koleus', meaning a sheath, in reference to the manner in which the stamens are enclosed. We have retained the older name for now as this change gets more widely recognized so not to confuse our staff or our customers. 

This information about Plectranthus madagascariensis displayed is based on research conducted in our horticultural library and from reliable online resources. We also will relate observations made about it as it grows in our nursery gardens and other gardens we have visited, as well how the crops have performed in containers in our nursery field. We will also incorporate comments that we receive from others and we welcome hearing from anyone with additional information, particularly if they can share any cultural information that would aid others in growing it.