How to Grow Poinsettias
Poinsettias are not just for the holidays, although that is when you often find them in stores and nurseries. Poinsettias can stay healthy and beautiful throughout the entire year. Simple attention to selection, placement and care can help ensure that your poinsettias continue to grow and flourish. The following steps will help you maintain and grow poinsettias. Does this Spark an idea?
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Instructions
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Look for poinsettias with thick and stocky stems, deep and intense colors, and leaves that go all the way down the stem.
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Make sure to wrap poinsettias during transportation on cold days. Poinsettias drop their leaves when exposed to sudden temperature changes. Even leaves touching a cold window will damage these semi-tropical plants.
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Set poinsettias in bright and natural light at least six hours a day. The afternoon sun is more intense, though, so keep it from shining directly on the plants as it will cause their color to fade.
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Position plants away from drafty doors and heat sources. Colors last longest when temperatures do not exceed 70 degrees during the daytime or fall below 65 degrees at night.
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Clip brown, faded leaves at the end of the stem.
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Water poinsettias when the soil surface feels dry. Stop watering when water begins to come out of the drainage holes. Keep soil moist.
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Use a very light fertilizer.
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Tips & Warnings
Poinsettias come in many shades of cream, yellow, white, pink, peach, traditional red and some with variegated bracts (leaves) that are designed with stripes, marbled or spotted with contrasting colors. Red shade poinsettias are still the most popular by far-80 percent.
Bracts (leaves) are commonly mistaken for the flower of the poinsettia. The flower or cyathia is located in the center of several bracts.
Poinsettias do not require fertilizer during the winter.
