By Jeff Floyd
Certified horticulturist and arborist
With Christmas winding to a close, you’ll soon survey your home in its wistful quietness and begin packing away decorations and disposing of crumpled gift paper, bows and other seasonal artifacts. However, before tossing the poinsettias, consider keeping them as a sweet reminder of the sounds and love that filled the house this season.
In 2019, poinsettia sales represented almost a quarter of all flowering plants sold in the U. S. Amazingly, the more than one-hundred-fifty million dollars’ worth of poinsettia sales take place in the four to six weeks just before Christmas. If you’ve found it more difficult than usual to locate that perfect poinsettia this year, it could be because growers scaled back on production. 2020 saw a slight drop in poinsettia orders. Fortunately, demand is recovering nicely from pre-pandemic numbers and many growers anticipate a return to normal in 2022.
To keep your poinsettias for next year, water them when the potting soil is slightly dry to the touch. They may begin to look a little scraggily over time, but this is perfectly normal. Slowly hold back water as April approaches but do not allow the stalks dry out. Keep poinsettias between sixty and seventy degrees.
In May, cut the stalks down to about four inches and repot into fresh potting soil. Around mid-May, place poinsettias in a window that offers plenty of sunlight and begin watering regularly. Do not expose them to temperatures above seventy degrees during May.
In June place the poinsettias in a shady outdoor location and apply a water-soluble fertilizer every fourteen days. Pinch back new growth once in July and again in August. In order to keep them from flowering place them in a completely dark location in October. Avoid exposing them to even the slightest amount of light until Thanksgiving when they should be placed back in the window. Water normally.
While this all sounds like a lot of effort, poinsettias will reward your hard work by producing their brightly colored foliage once again as Christmas approaches. By the way, if you were born in December, you have a good reason to celebrate the poinsettia; it along with narcissus share the title ‘flower of the month.’
