Poinsettias

Nature 5 Minutes

Poinsettia is a perennial shrub native to Mexico. It is most often grown as an annual for winter holiday display, but it can also be grown as a perennial garden shrub in regions where winter temperatures remain above 50 degrees Fahrenheit. The familiar red species has been joined by even flashier hues thanks to hybridizers who have expanded the range of colors from the familiar scarlet to white, cream, salmon, yellow, and pink. Its blooms are a cluster of tiny yellow flowers surrounded by large brilliant (usually red) floral bracts, which are modified leaves. Also known as Mexican flameleaf, these plants are forced into bloom in time for the holiday season, and they require specific care to look their best into the new year and beyond.

Contrary to a popular myth, poinsettias are not seriously toxic to people or pets. At most, they are mildly toxic to cats and dogs who ingest the plant material.

Poinsettia Care

There is no need to discard your poinsettia come January—you can keep it healthy and vigorous throughout the year with the right care. The trick: Provide enough filtered sun, warmth, and water, and your poinsettia will thrive. If you’re especially motivated and follow a regimen of specific care, your plant might rebloom next holiday season.

If grown as a landscape shrub in warm climates, poinsettia requires a sunny location and well-drained soil. Frequent pinching back of the stem tips will ensure seasonal color in winter.

Light

Poinsettia do best when placed in bright, diffused sunlight, so place your plant near a sunny window where it will receive at least six to eight hours of diffused light per day. Although the plants can survive with fewer hours of light, they won’t be as vigorous or as long-lived. Be aware that exposure to direct sunlight can burn bracts and leaves.

Soil

While poinsettias are typically purchased already potted from a garden center or nursery, if you’re planting (or replanting) a poinsettia, choose a well-draining peat-based potting soil for best success. In warm climates (zones 9 to 11), poinsettias can be planted into the landscape, where they thrive best in a well-drained, acidic to neutral soil.

Water

Water your poinsettia whenever the soil surface feels dry to the touch. Saturate the soil completely until water runs through the drainage holes in the bottom of the pot, but do not let the plant sit in water. If the pot was wrapped in decorative foil, be sure to poke a few holes through the bottom to allow excess water to drain away. Overwatering is the quickest way to kill a poinsettia, and wilting leaves and rotted plant roots are usually signs of overwatering.

Temperature and Humidity

To keep your poinsettia in bloom as long as possible, maintain a temperature of 65 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit during the day. A slight drop in temperature at night will not hurt the plant. However, cold drafts, allowing the leaves to touch a cold window, or more importantly, a lack of adequate light, can injure the leaves and cause premature yellowing and leaf drop.

Lack of humidity during dry seasons, particularly during winter, is an ongoing problem for most houseplants, including poinsettias. If your home tends to be dry, consider investing in a small space humidifier to increase humidity levels in the area surrounding your poinsettia.

Fertilizer

Do not fertilize these plants during their blooming period. When keeping the plant throughout the year, you can begin fertilizing in the spring at half-strength when there’s no growth, but not until then. Feed every three to four weeks until the plant is re-established.

How to Get Poinsettias to Rebloom

If you want to grow your poinsettia throughout the year and force reblooming for the next holiday season, you must follow a very specific process throughout the year. Achieving rebloom is not easy, so don’t be disheartened if you don’t succeed on your first try. Follow this schedule for best results:

December to Early Spring

Water your holiday poinsettias, keeping them moist but not soaked. Then, starting in early spring, do the following:

Gradually decrease waterings, allowing the soil to dry out between waterings. Be careful that the stem of your poinsettia does not begin to shrivel—this is a sign the plant is too stressed and is dying.

In a week or two, when the plant has acclimated to this drying process, move it to a cool spot, such as the basement or a heated garage. Keep the temperature around 60 degrees Fahrenheit.

May

In mid-May, do the following:

Cut the stems back to about four inches and repot your poinsettia into a slightly larger container filled with new potting soil.

Water well and place the newly-potted plant in front of the brightest window you have, and once again keep it at a temperature of 65 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit.

Continue watering whenever the surface of the soil feels dry and watch for new growth.

Once new growth appears, begin fertilizing every two weeks with a complete fertilizer.

Summer

Come summer, move your potted poinsettia outdoors. Keep it in a partially shaded location and maintain your watering and fertilizing schedule.

In early July, pinch back each stem by about one inch to encourage a stout, well-branched plant. If left unpinched, the poinsettia will grow tall and spindly.

By mid-August, the stems should have branched and leafed out. Once again, pinch or cut the new stems, leaving three to four leaves on each shoot. Bring the plant indoors and place it near your brightest window.

October

Poinsettias are short-day plants, meaning their bud set is affected by the length of daylight. To rebloom, poinsettias need about 10 weeks with 12 to 14 hours of absolute darkness per day. You will have to artificially create these conditions and remain diligent. At the very start of October, do the following:

Keep your plant in complete darkness from 5 p.m. to 8 a.m.—any exposure to light will delay blooming.

Use an opaque box or other material to block out all light, including artificial light. Many people place their plants in a closet, but if any light gets through cracks or if you open and use the closet, the exposure to light will affect the bud set.

Move the plant back to the sunny window during the daytime and continue watering and fertilizing.

November and December

About the last week of November, stop the darkness treatment and allow the plant to remain near the window. You should see flower buds at this point. Stop fertilizing around mid-December. Keep watering and treat your plant the way you did when you first brought it home in bloom. If all has gone well, bracts should begin to show color.

Types of Poinsettias

Besides the traditional red bracts, newer hybrids have been bred in a variety of colors, including shades of white, cream, yellow, salmon, purple, burgundy, and pink. Note that some unusual colors, such as blue, are produced using dyes, and if the plant reblooms, bracts will be their natural color.

At any given time, there are at least 100 different poinsettia cultivars to choose from. Some recent favorites (along with some long-time standards) include:

‘Christmas Eve’: This is a long-time favorite with pure red flowers, known for its long color season.

‘Plum Pudding’: This is the first purple hybrid introduced to the market.

‘Alaska White‘: As the name suggests, this is a pure white cultivar that blends well with red varieties.

‘Jingle Bell Rock’: ‘This variety is a mixture of cream and bright red with glossy dark green leaves.

‘Candy Cinamon’: This cultivar has dappled pink foliage, making for a softer appearance.

‘Golden Glow’: This soft yellow variety is compact and known to be more heat tolerant than other forms.

‘Lemon Drop’: This cheery variety has bright yellow bracts.

‘Gold Rush’: This stunning variety combines shades of pink and gold.

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Published by pat frederick

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105 thoughts on “Poinsettias”

    1. So sorry to hear he isn’t feeling any better. Hope you are able to get some assistance, maybe a nebulizer perhaps? But, then, you most likely know all about that stuff already. Good luck and my opinion is: DON’T DELAY!

      Liked by 2 people

      1. he has to wait to hear from his pulmonologist–she is familiar with his condition and she’s right there next to the hospital. mornings are tough for him…even now he’s sounding 100% better than he did during the night.

        Liked by 2 people

        1. I assume you have a humidifier going….I haven’t run mine for a few years now but I noticed some static electricity recently so I’m going to set mine up this winter. And it will help my sinuses.

          Liked by 2 people

        2. 🙏🙏🙏
          So rough watching loved ones struggle…
          Both stepdaughters have allergy triggered asthma.
          I hope he can get some relief…

          Liked by 2 people

  2. “Mitt Romney: The Model Senator for GOP Beltway Grifters — A eulogy for the death of Mitt Romney’s political career (2002-2024)”

    EMERALD ROBINSON
    DEC 11, 2023

    Author’s Note: “The Utah Senator Mitt Romney appeared on NBC’s Meet The Press recently, and declined to endorse any GOP candidate for President by saying: “If I endorsed them, it would be the kiss of death — I’m not going to do that.” This was a remarkable comment because it was the first time in many years that political observers recalled Romney showing any self-awareness. In fact, he’s become so unpopular among GOP voters that he announced earlier this year that he would not run again for re-election in 2024.

    What exactly had happened to Mitt? For that matter, who exactly was Mitt? Here’s my profile on his decline and fall from 2021 which should be read as Mitt’s political obituary.

    May it rest in pieces….”

    https://www.emerald.tv/p/mitt-romney-the-model-senator-for-e29

    Liked by 1 person

  4. without any context–just the headline–can you guess what type of hair we’re discussing?

    https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/12/new_hair_texture_inclusion_law_in_new_york_requires_all_stylists_to_be_trained_in_all_hair_types.html

    well a NY congressperson named Jamaal decided that he needed an “emergency” touch up of his hair and there wasn’t a stylist around trained in “textured hair” so he set about to make a bill requiring ALL salons to have stylists trained and tested in all types of hair so he wouldn’t be inconvenienced.

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  5. “The Hypnotic Rhythm of Dependence”
    BY Thomas Buckley, December 5, 2023

    “I remember when Friday used to mean something,” said the disheveled man on the bus. Dependent poverty has a rhythm. You know the supermarket will be busy on the first of the month because that’s when food stamp cards are reloaded. Holiday weekends are not a respite but an inconvenience because the government offices you rely on are closed. You know you have to spend more time running errands and you know the bus schedule.

    You know that you are treated like a bothersome client, never a valued customer, wherever you go and you just take it until you can’t anymore and then you’re labeled a problem and jeopardize what little you have. You know about forms and window number threes and to start calling social services an hour before they open at 8am, to not bother to call after 9am, and to never call on a Wednesday when they are closed.

    It is a slow consistent rhythm, day after day broken only by occasional family chaos, medical emergency, or the fleeting bliss of oblivion. It becomes a comfortable numbing throb, a cosseted existence that drains drip by drip, imperceptibly unless you look very closely and you can no longer face doing anything of the sort.

    Life becomes a sieve that cannot be plugged or discarded, only tilted this way and that to keep something – just one drop – of your own.

    “I remember when truth used to mean something,” said the disheartened man on the bus. Censorship has a rhythm. You know what you want to say but you always pause that extra beat before you say anything, even amongst friends. You know that whatever is being told to you is probably a lie, probably intentional, but maybe later you might find out the truth. You know you are losing, beat by beat, the ability to trust anyone, anything about anything. You know if you dare to raise the question, to openly ask if something has changed you will be swatted aside and you know you will not be looked in the eyes when you are told you are delusional.

    The government meant to protect society and the schools meant to educate society and the foundations meant to serve society are no longer doing so. You know that maybe they never really did, they never quite lived up to their goals, but you know that now they are only serving themselves and their allies and overlords while not letting you think anything of the kind.

    You know the as-unfettered-as-possible flow of ideas and information to and fro amongst people has been the bedrock of progress, has upended the terrible and wrong, has led to a genuinely better unblinkered culture, and is at the core of the idea of a free society. And you see that slipping away to the omnipresent rhythm and you start to wonder if really the problem is you, that you do not understand the collective needs and benefits of a society that is run smoothly by those who may have the better idea, that swimming upstream against the imposed silence is counter-productive.

    And you start to tire and wonder why you are bothering in the fruitless effort to hold on to even the smallest part of the truth and you slow for a moment and everything starts to be much easier. And that ease sets the rhythm to come and you start to reflexively defend the new calming rhythm, the simple comforting background, the ever-so-slightly pulsing hum that is there to keep you in subjective stasis. On occasion you feel a tick, a click, a hitch in the hum and are reminded ever so briefly that the float comes with sacrifice, a sacrifice of something you eventually will forget – if the censors do their job right.

    “I remember when I meant something,” said the disposable man on the bus.

    There was a rhythm to the pandemic. It was a rhythm of nothingness, a blend of day into day. It was a rhythm detached from time, a metronome of stay in, click on, stay in, stay afraid. What information that was available was tailored to create unsettled obedience, a state of wide-awake nervous exhaustion that feedback fed the rhythm itself.

    The rhythm changed slightly over time as human allowances, in exchange for submissions, were made. Mask on, mask off, allowed to meet, not allowed to speak, venture out, stay out? Maybe later…we’ll see.

    Shot in, everything’s better? Another shot…another shot…maybe now you can establish your own rhythm again. Just remember to say thank you, to remember you were saved by those of us who set the rhythm, no thanks to those who stayed dangerously out of step. And we can make the rhythm come back when it is most convenient for its return. Tick, tock, tick, tock…The pandemic was the rhythm of dependence. The pandemic was the rhythm of censorship. And it will be the rhythm of the future.

    Unless…We remember that we are meant to do something.”

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  6. show of hands…who’s surprised?

    Winston
    December 12, 2023 8:45 am

    UN’s COP28 climate summit offers burgers and ribs while United Nations lectures against eating meat
    9 Dec 2023

    https://www.theblaze.com/news/un-s-cop28-climate-summit-offers-burgers-and-ribs-while-united-nations-lectures-against-eating-meat

    Among the food options offered for attendees are The Hungry Hub, which offers beef and meat; Philly Jawn by Ghostburger, which offers burgers and Philly cheesesteaks; Swaggers, which offers smoked ribs and smoked wagyu burgers; and Mattar Farm Live Cooking, which serves ‘unbelievable smoked meats’ and ‘melt-in-your-mouth BBQ.’

    Despite offering a bevy of meat options at the United Nations climate summit, the U.N.’s Food & Agriculture Organization is set to publish its first-ever global food systems’ road map during an upcoming COP28 session, which will demand countries like the United States to eat less meat.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. “Is Eating Meat Bad For You? 5 Myths Debunked: They say eating meat is bad for you and the environment. We’re here to debunk those myths and more!”
      FLCCC ALLIANCE
      DEC 11, 2023

      “Looks like meat’s back on the menu.

      These days, you needn’t look far to find claims that meat is unhealthy. The anti-meat crowd has grown into an entire industry, empowering themselves with a laundry list of claims like:

      — Eating meat is generally bad for you
      — It leads to heart disease, stroke, and diabetes
      — And meat hurts the environment

      The people who cite these claims may be well-intentioned, but they are not well-informed. The science that guides them is not only outdated but, in many cases, it was wrong from the start. With so many conflicting studies, no wonder so many are asking if it’s unhealthy to eat meat! If you have with questions, don’t fret. Our medical experts have sifted through the research to give you answers. So, keep reading! In this post, we’ll debunk 5 myths that say eating meat can be harmful.

      5 Myths About Why Eating Meat is Unhealthy:

      Before we debunk these 5 myths, consider this: our most ancient ancestors subsisted primarily by eating meat. To this day, there are human populations (like the Inuit) who eat almost nothing but meat.

      For most of known human history, the only source of protein was meat… and we survived! Fast forward to the modern day, and an average of 86% of people eat meat regularly. That’s according to a survey by Statista that asked people from 21 countries about their meat-eating habits.

      With all that in mind, let’s investigate these meat myths:

      1. Meat is bad for your health overall
      2. Eating meat can increase the risk of diabetes
      3. Fruits and vegetables are more nutritious than meat
      4. Eating meat and saturated fats leads to heart disease and stroke
      5. Meat hurts the environment and our health

      Here’s a shocker: studies that start with the hypothesis of “why eating meat is bad for your body” almost always find the same. As we’ll find out, the myth of harmful meat is one of the oldest lies in modern science…..”

      https://flccc.substack.com/p/is-eating-meat-bad-for-you-5-myths

      Liked by 1 person

  7. Liked by 1 person

  12. Wheezer sure keeps me guessing…he didn’t show up at all yesterday and had been acting different for a couple of days before that. No show this morning in spite of calling him several times. I figured he was gone and BAM! Just like that, I turn and look and he’s chowing down! Shacking up again, are we??? LOL – his congestion is worse, tho.

    Maybe some trucks will make hubby feel better!




    Liked by 1 person

  16. sigh….my Mom….is going to drive me to drink! She has been unable to get thru to me on the phone having called me twice yesterday….sigh…the only calls I got were 402-419 numbers (which is the Lincoln exchange – when I first moved here in 2009, I was living in Lincoln, hence, my number which my Mom has had since then). I ignored the first one and answered the second to be met with silence. Those are the ONLY calls I’ve gotten. She tells my Sis to have me call her, she has some banana bread and cookies for me and Sis sends me an e-mail. OK

    I called Mom this morning and it went to VM…I left a message thanks, I appreciate it, but don’t need it this year – I still have banana bread in my freezer! Five minutes later, Sis called, said she saw she’d gotten an e-mail ( she’s driving) and just called me. I ran everything down for her and found out Mom got a new phone recently. Ah-ha!!! And the fog clears!!! The number is surely not saved correctly in her contact list. But Sis says, no, Mandy (my niece) got it all set up for her on Thanksgiving.

    Well, hell’s bells! Sis wondered if she knew how to text and I told her I’d thought of that but she can’t even make a simple phone call!!! I KNOW she has my number written down in various places. Just input the digits and click connect, FFS!!! 😫😠🥴🤒😦😧😩😩😩

    Liked by 1 person

  18. Holy cow! Just now on Fox…storms ripped thru the south this week-end w/14 tornadoes in TN alone. Madison, TN, about 10-12 miles from Nashville, is pretty much destroyed.

    Liked by 1 person

  19. “Pope Francis Excommunicates Apostle Paul Over Outdated Views On Women, Marriage”
    CHURCH · Dec 11, 2023 · BabylonBee.com

    VATICAN CITY — The Catholic Church announced this week Pope Francis has excommunicated the Apostle Paul over the latter’s outdated views on women, families, and social issues.

    “We regret to announce Saint Paul is no longer a member of the Catholic Church,” a statement from The Vatican reads. “Paul’s problematic teachings on so-called traditional families and women have no place in modern Catholicism.”

    The move comes after Pope Francis openly condemned Paul for his biblical statements on the importance of gender roles and traditional marriage.

    “We regret we placed this deeply misogynistic and homophobic man on a pedestal for 2,000 years,” said Francis to reporters. “Forbidding women from preaching, condemning homosexuality, telling women to be chaste, modest, and quiet in church? I’m literally shaking just thinking about it. Paul’s continued defiance of modern Catholic sensibilities will no longer be allowed.”

    At publishing time, the Pope had announced an additional inquiry against Saint Peter on the Apostle’s continued insistence that people repent of their sins.”

    Liked by 1 person

  20. “Statement from the Harvard Corporation: Our President:

    Dear Members of the Harvard Community,

    As members of the Harvard Corporation, we today reaffirm our support for President Gay’s continued leadership of Harvard University. Our extensive deliberations affirm our confidence that President Gay is the right leader to help our community heal and to address the very serious societal issues we are facing.

    So many people have suffered tremendous damage and pain because of Hamas’s brutal terrorist attack, and the University’s initial statement should have been an immediate, direct, and unequivocal condemnation. Calls for genocide are despicable and contrary to fundamental human values. President Gay has apologized for how she handled her congressional testimony and has committed to redoubling the University’s fight against antisemitism.

    With regard to President Gay’s academic writings, the University became aware in late October of allegations regarding three articles. At President Gay’s request, the Fellows promptly initiated an independent review by distinguished political scientists and conducted a review of her published work. On December 9, the Fellows reviewed the results, which revealed a few instances of inadequate citation. While the analysis found no violation of Harvard’s standards for research misconduct, President Gay is proactively requesting four corrections in two articles to insert citations and quotation marks that were omitted from the original publications.

    In this tumultuous and difficult time, we unanimously stand in support of President Gay. At Harvard, we champion open discourse and academic freedom, and we are united in our strong belief that calls for violence against our students and disruptions of the classroom experience will not be tolerated. Harvard’s mission is advancing knowledge, research, and discovery that will help address deep societal issues and promote constructive discourse, and we are confident that President Gay will lead Harvard forward toward accomplishing this vital work.”

    The Fellows of Harvard College
    Penny Pritzker, Senior Fellow
    Timothy R. Barakett, Treasurer
    Kenneth I. Chenault
    Mariano-Florentino (Tino) Cuéllar
    Paul J. Finnegan
    Biddy Martin
    Karen Gordon Mills
    Diana L. Nelson
    Tracy P. Palandjian
    Shirley M. Tilghman
    Theodore V. Wells, Jr.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. what a crock!
      if she didn’t violate standards it’s because their standards are soooo freaking low!
      and she gets to “proactively” insert 4 corrections?
      hey dipshits: after she has been called out is not PROACTIVELY!!!
      the dissertation should be withdrawn and her degree revoked

      Liked by 1 person

  21. Got an e-mail from Piper yesterday – I had e-mailed the sunrise pics I posted a few days ago but I used the Imgur links. Since she is on a school computer, she couldn’t access them. I replied and attached the pics and she replied that it was gorgeous. I had also asked her how she did in the singing competition (she thought she did “pretty good”) and if her Dad had recorded it. She said she would ask and, if so, have him send it to me. That was it. I replied “Love you, Punkin Eater!” and I haven’t gotten a reply…probably won’t until the next time she’s bored with time on her hands.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. weird I keep refreshing but all i see are squiggles in boxes. occasionally a meme will load but when i click on them I get google saying it’s a 500. error…???
      hopefully they’ll pop in eventually

      Liked by 1 person

    1. Oh, yeah, I took those off a few days ago. It’s cloudy and cold at 33 but the prediction for the next 10 days is for highs in the 40’s w/no snow, thankfully….so far but that could change tomorrow! LOL

      Liked by 1 person

  26. Ran out to the store to get some creamer – can’t live w/o my creamer – and picked up a peach pie to bake and some extra-creamy whipped cream to top it off! It’s a full-size pie so that will last a few days!

    Liked by 1 person

  30. “Quoth the Pithy Elders—100 Timeless Zingers to Chew On”

    JIMYCHANGA
    DEC 12, 2023

    EXCERPT: “Some of the Best Quotes Ever: Enjoy!

    “If you wish to be a success in the world, promise everything, deliver nothing.”
    – Napoleon Bonaparte

    “One useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three is a Congress.”
    – John Adams

    “We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors we borrow it from our children.”
    – Haida Proverb

    “America is a golden calf and we will suck it dry, chop it up, and sell it off piece by piece until there is nothing left but the world’s biggest welfare state that we will create and control… This is what we do to countries that we hate. We destroy them very slowly.”
    – Bibi Netanyahu

    “The Nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.”
    – Thucydides

    “The strongest shield and safeguard for all men, especially for the masses against tyrants, is mistrust of those in power.”
    – Demosthenes

    “Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain – and most fools do.”
    – Benjamin Franklin

    “Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future, too.”
    – Marcus Aurelius

    “When dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity.”
    – Dale Carnegie

    “We have destroyed our democracy to an extent the terrorists never could have. We’ve changed our democracy into a semi-police state.”
    – William Binney

    “All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force.”
    – George Orwell…….

    https://jimychanga.substack.com/p/quoth-the-pithy-elders

    Liked by 1 person

      1. Well, allrighty then! Good advice for anyone! I have my own breathing issues due to my heavy smoking so I understand how unsettling it can be. You have to keep yourself from panicking and hyperventilating.

        Liked by 1 person

          1. I have to sleep with my head elevated regardless of whatever else I do, such as the humidifier. Which is why I always sleep in my recliner – and I do mean always. I haven’t slept in my bed for weeks now.

            Liked by 1 person

  32. we went to the little market in town–i needed tissues and orange juice and we picked up the mail. then i called Mom to tell her we won’t be there for Christmas–she was disappointed but she agreed she didn’t want to get sick.
    She turns 85 in January so we will definitely try to make it then and make it a big deal.

    Liked by 1 person

  33. Wheezer’s squeeze must have kicked him out! He left after eating earlier, then showed up sleeping in his chair about half an hour ago…now he is sitting at the door looking inside. LOL – well, that didn’t last long – he set right to chowing down again.

    Liked by 1 person

  35. I am adding a short daily prayer to the board. I would invite each of you, if you wish, to also add one or maybe two of your own liking. I do not want to stifle anyone but please limit yourself to one or two religious postings. here’s one I found that I liked.

    Like

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