Poinsettia Gift Plants - how to care for them
When you're selecting your Christmas Poinsettia look beyound the beautiful, soft, red leaves.
Examine the small green buds with red tops at center of the red bracts.
Those are the poinsettia blooms.
They should be fresh looking with with red tips. If they are yellow and cover with pollen or missing your poinsettia is past its prime and it won't last long in the home enviroment.
So, you put that one back and keep looking. :)
Keep you poinsettia plant in bright light for at least three hours a day and try to maintain the humitity above 30 percent.
Room Temperature for a Poinsettia should be around 60-70 F. degrees.
Water with warm water when the soil feels dry and do not let the plant sit in standing water.
The holidays is over and your poinsettia is still alive and you want to keep it.
In the spring transplant your plant to a bigger pot.
In the Fall you need to tell your plant it's cold and dark outside.
Put your plant by a cool window with bright light during the day and at night cover your plant with a thick paper bag so it will be in total darkness. Or you can put your plant in a dark cool room a couple of days at a time. This forces your poinsettia to bloom for the holidays.
I only do this for about a week and then patiently wait and see if it's going to bloom. Sometimes it blooms after the holidays.
It's always such an accomplishment for me to see my green leaf plant grow bright red ones on demand. :)