You cannot take vegetative cuttings from any patented plant variety without paying royalties. I take it you buy their material retail? If you were buying wholesale they'd have likely included this bit of information. I have been in the business so long that I remember when coleus was offered largely from seed grown strains instead of by the each from vegetatively selected lines. I believe you can find 'look alikes' for most of the expensive patented lines in seed grown stock. The industry is now trying to tighten their hold on the 'names' under which these sexually propagated lines are sold by using copyright, but as long as you don't use those 'names' I suspect you are ok to propagate them at will. I always contacted the company selling the stock I wished to propagate if tags or patent info wasn't included with an order and enquired if propagation was protected. It was an issue with me, because I grew and was granted propagation rights for some lines, and was open for inspection at any time from royalty administrators. They could and did count the product on my benches and could and did look at my records. I take it you don't have a business?

pwnie, did you read Calliope's response carefully? I'd like to stress that you should not be taking cuttings PERIOD, let alone selling them if the mother plant is still protected by a patent. Selling them is not the issue....propagating them without permission from the patent holder is.

You might want to contact Rosy Dawn and ask them which, if any, of their plants are patented and which names have copyrights. That information sure isn't forthcoming in their catalog.

Thank you both for your responses - no, I don't have a business, this is just a hobby, and I hope I made it clear in my original post that I am not currently selling or distributing these varieties (although I have taken cuttings for myself - I was not aware that THIS presented legal issues, as well).

I also agree that the information isn't forthcoming and since I don't buy wholesale (I don't believe you can) it was not provided. I will happily continue to cultivate these special coleus for myself and look into some seed-grown varieties if I decide to ever give them away to others!

Owners of the patents on plants are very unlikely to go after a home gardener that takes cuttings for friends and family (or for yourself). It isn't something I would worry too much about unless you are a retail or wholesale seller of large quantities of plants.

Going after, in this context consists of legal action, which costs money. Anyone undertaking it would have to be sufficiently offended to spend the money.

You would be surprised at how patent infringement is addressed lately and sometimes money is spent simply to send a message. No, it isn't likely to happen to a home gardener but then there is the moral issue involved.

There are certainly legal ways to get around that issue without paying a royalty, and that is to purchase a plant for each topiary you intend to train. You can leave the label right in it. If you intended on selling it, just charge more because you had to buy a plant, and pass the cost along.

Please also be aware that a magic line is crossed when you do something for a hobby and then decide it might be nice to make a little money from it. Used to see that sort of stuff a lot at a local farmer's market. Plant inspectors can and do drop in at places like that and look for permits and licenses. A few people who had been doing it on the sly for quite awhile, had to remove their offerings (the ones what were considered nursery stock) they grew without inspection or bothering to get the appropriate paperwork and were darned lucky to not have had to pay fines.