How to Care for a Poinsettia

Video Transcript

"Hi, this is Yolanda Vanveen and in this segment we're going to talk about how to care for a Poinsettia. Now Poinsettias are beautiful. We give them at Christmas time; they have gorgeous red and yellow flowers on them and then we enjoy them in our house and then sooner or later the leaves die and they seem to; we just seem to kill them. Now you've got to remember Poinsettias are from Mexico so they cannot go below fifty degrees. You want to keep them warm at all times; if they freeze, you will lose them. And the same in the inside of the house, they don't want to get too hot or too cold and the problem with Poinsettias is they don't want to get too dry as far as they want some moisture; they need humidity. So just by putting a tray with some gravel underneath them so that the water; they're not actually sitting in water but they're above some moisture and just having that moisture makes all the difference. And you want to also make sure they get enough light. They do need some light. So indoors you want to keep them in a real sunny window or give them artificial light. And I've actually kept the Poinsettia for up to five years by bringing it inside and outside; every summer leaving it outside in a nice sunny, but not full direct sun. It doesn't like hot afternoon sun; a little bit afternoon shade is best like a patio plant and then you'll bring it back inside the winter whenever it gets fifty and below. So as long as you treat Poinsettia as a tropical plant, you can grow it real easily."