This is a question often heard shortly after the new twelvemonth starts and the colourful pair on this favorite Christmas flower have begun to fade and fall leaving only the sickly yellow flowerets to exude their gummy succus on windowpane sill or flower stand .
Many people will answer their own questions by setting their poinsettia on the back porch where the wintertime wind will soon secern what has been done with it . But other brave soul will tenderly worry for the works all class , hope that it will bloom at Christmas , only to be disappoint when no flowers seem . This disappointment is really not necessary , for poinsettias will bloom again at Christmas clock time for , many yr if they are pass on right care .
To grow any flowering industrial plant , it is very of import that one should know something about its native habitat , its dirt demand , and the temperature and amount of body of water it likes well . Thepoinsettiais a tropic plant . J. R. Poinsett of South Carolina brought it to the United States from Mexico early in the 19th C . Its tropical inception has much to do with what must be done for your poinsettia if it is to bloom ’ for several long time rather of just one .
Like the gloxinia , the chrysanthemum , and many other plants ; the poinsettia needs a long period of residue . In fiat to get it , the flora must be put to sleep . When its blooming time period is over , it should be placed in the cellar , a vacant room , or even a closet , where the temperature will not go below freeze or rise to 60 point . It will need only enough water to keep the stain from becoming completely dry . It will lose all of its leaves and will look hopeless , but , if these guidance are keep up , when spring comes it will show to be very much live .
Put Plant Outdoors When bounce does total , and the temperature has go up to 60 degrees or more , commove yourpoinsettia’slong sleep by taking it outdoors , removing it from its pot , and reset it in a raw one at least one sizing heavy ; using soil compose of adequate share coarse backbone , good garden soil , and leaf stamp . Add sheep manure amounting to one - sixth of the bulk of the other ingredients . put your poinsettia in the novel pot using this new grease , water it freely , and localise it in a saved but fairly sunny emplacement . If temperatures are below fifty degree imperil , protect the flora until the weather becomes warmer again . Always see that your industrial plant has spate of water during this early period .
Soon , new growth will look and you could tell what part of the base or stanch is dead . Even if there is no dead Grant Wood , it is well to hack off two or three inches of each previous shank so as to stimulate side growth . Do not use these top for “ slips ” as the plants they make will develop too tall and become leggy .
When new growth gets to be three or four in long , you must make up one’s mind what size of it you want your re - set plant to be , or you may wish to propagate one or two newfangled plants from cutting . If your old plant had but one stem , this stem should be cut back until it is only four or five inch long . If your old plant consists of several stalk or branch , each stem or branch should be cut back severely in edict that it may not become too declamatory . It was belike produced from a “ slip ” or cutting and had to bring out roots before it could begin to grow . Your previous works already has its tooth root and can make a outgrowth by Christmas sentence , that will surprise you .
Leave Plant in Pot
Never set your poinsettia in the undefendable – ground . If you do , you will find that when you pot it in the spill ; it will lose practically all of its leaves , and , even if it does efflorescence , a bloom on a – leafless pin is not specially beautiful .
It is well , however , to set the pot containing your lobster plant in the ground within an inch or two of the brim . This will keep its roots nerveless . Keep your flora well water , but do not permit the soil become waterlogged . Once a week from the clip it is ` put out until the honest flowers_- which are lily-livered – set about to appear , give your poinsettia a feeding of smooth manure . This will tote up vigor to your industrial plant and give brighter color to the bracts .
In early fall , when temperatures lead off to slide down below sixty degree , your Christmas star belongs in the house , far low , temperatures cause it to drop off its folio . invest it in a sunny window where it will not be unwrap to cold drafts .
require Complete Darkness Poinsettias to belong to to that group of plant life , which time their bloom by the shortening of the solar day . If you want your Christmas star to bloom during the Christmas time of year , it must have at least twelve hours of complete dark every twenty - four 60 minutes . The government bulletin which dish out with this subject says : “ even one minute of igniter during this moody period will prevent your poinsettia from blooming at Christmas time . ” It may blossom later or it may not . Failure to observe this regulation is the principal reason for the bankruptcy of your Euphorbia pulcherrima to flower . The lack of a retentive rest period is a close second .
If these directions are followed precisely and no untoward accident bechance your lobster plant , it will bloom not only next Christmas but with standardized treatment each year , for many Christmases . The writer made the same flora bloom for more than ten long time during which clip it mature to be more than six metrical foot grandiloquent and had more efflorescence each year , some of which were more than a foot across .
Poinsettia Cuttings
If you desire to grow cutting from your one-time poinsettia , here are some abbreviated rule that will help you :
1 . When the new growth reaches a length of four or five inches discerp the thinning you desire from the old stems with a sharp knife .
2 . pose each cutting in a four - inch grass in which you have put a little sphagnum moss or vulgar peat moss , then fill with exhaustively moisten grit . Use a rooting internal secretion if you wish . Do . not thrust your cutting into the gumption . Make a hole for it with your digit or a stick . Finally urge the George Sand around it unwaveringly , rate a glass over it and gear up it in a good brightness level , but not in the sunlight . Water it every morning unless the solar day is cloudy .
3 . Later , when the cutting begins to show real ’ growth , transfer it to a six - inch smoke using the same – grime intermixture that is move over for the setting of an old plant life . If you desire to make a gorgeous presentation , you may set as many as ten cuttings in a ten - inch corporation .
4 . Cuttings are usually made in July . They should not be made after the middle of August .
by G. H. Marshall , Kansas
“ WHAT SHALL I DO with my poinsettia ? ”
