Anyone know what I should do with it now? Can I keep it in sunlight? Will it live? This is my first experience with these plants, and this one is really nice and full…very healthy. Any advice is welcome!
Zette
Love is like popsicles…you get too much you get too high.
Not enough and you’re gonna die…
Click here for some GOOD news for a change Zettecity
Don’t eat it.
Other than that, give it water, feed it thrice daily, take it on walks through the park, change the oil every 3000 miles and don’t forget to use water sealant every 6 months.
I didn’t get anything… I had to pay $50 and pick up the garbage!
IT LIVES!! IT LIVES!!
Yes, it will survive with the usual plant treatments… BUT it may never bring forth those red leaves again without special handling.
See http://www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/poinsettia/ for tips on getting them to “bloom” again.
Don’t let your cats (if you have any) anywhere near it! It’s very poisonous to animals!
All I know is they don’t seem to like heat. I got one last year and it’s still alive but lost most of its leaves when I brought it inside to try to redden it up for the holidays. It sat next to a heater for a couple weeks before I found out that it prefers cooler weather. Not icy temperatures, though. One of my neighbors actually planted hers in the ground outside a couple years ago and it’s now about 6-feet tall with the most beautiful red flowers on it. (I live in Southern California where roses bloom year-round and you can see more planes in the sky than stars at night.)
“Work is the curse of the drinking classes.” - Oscar Wilde
Don’t worry about eating them though:
[http://www.snopes.com/holidays/xmas/poinsett.htm](http://www.snopes.com/holidays/xmas/poinsett.htm)
It’s a long way to heaven, but only three short steps to hell.
Here’s what the Sunset Western Gardening Book has to say about these plants:
For indoors, plants need a sunny window. Avoid sudden temperature changes. Soil should be moist but not soaking wet all the time (dont let the water collect in the bottom of the pot). When leaves fall in late winter or early spring, cut stems back to two buds, and reduce water to a minimum. Store in a cool place till spring. When danger of frosts passes, set pots in sun outdoors. They will probably grow too tall for indoor use next winter, but may survive winter if well sheltered. Start plants by making late summer cuttings of stems with four or five joints.
For planting outdoors, it needs a frost free area, or if in an area with slight frosts, some protection (mostly to keep the leaves looking nice). It likes well drained soil, and where adapted outdoors, it doesn’t need much care (slightly acid soil mostly). It says to improve the red color outside, you give it high nitrogen fertilizer every two weeks when the bracts start to show color. Also, thinning the branches produces larger bracts.
Another thing: Like all euphorbia, the showiest parts of the plant are the bracts. These are modified leaves, and are not a part of the flowers. If you look closely at the center of the red bracts, you will see the small yellowish flowers in the center. Since these plants are in the Euphorbia family, they do have the typical milky sap, but they arent toxic (go to the snopes site if you dont believe me). They probably taste bitter, but you wont die from eating a leaf.
I throw them out. THey are rasied in greenhouses and they need that climate to have showy flowers ON TIME. Course if you want flowers at a weird time of the year, save them.
When I was a little kid, I used to stay sometimes with an older lady from church. Every year, the congregation gave her a poinsettia plant. She still had them, all of them. She watered regularly, and never changed the temperature of her house. It was set at 68 year round. Those plants were gorgeous. They were huge, bushy, and vibrantly colored. They all but filled parts of her house completely. I have never known anyone else who pulled this off. She claimed that the trick was the steady temperature. Of course, this was in Virginia, so the climate was pretty mild anyway.