Christmas Beauty

I enjoy plants and Christmas is heralded with the arrival of Poinsettias. The United States celebrate Poinsettia Day on December 12. A very popular Christmas plant with approximately 70 million plants sold in the United States each year. The poinsettia is native to Mexico and Central American growing wild and reaching heights of ten feet according to Britannica.

I used to buy a poinsettia each year. My favorite poinsettia variety is the original, crimson variety. Enjoy the beauty of their crimson bracts or “leaves” and yellow blooms. Each year shortly after Christmas, the plant would die. I tried for several years to keep the plant alive with hopes of the plant blooming once more showing its beauty at Christmas. I read books and talked with workers in green houses. I just could not keep a poinsettia alive long enough to bloom once more. I finally gave up, my “green thumb” would not work with poinsettias.

Last year at a dinner I had for family and friends to celebrate Christmas and the beginning of a new year, a friend gave me a beautiful poinsettia. I enjoyed the crimson color for a month, then the plant shed the colorful leaves. Why or how the plant survived, I am not certain. Each time I watered or would look at the plant I would think of my friend and our friendship.

Then before Thanksgiving, crimson leaves began to appear. The poinsettia given last year is blooming. While I have decided to keep my Christmas decorating to a minimum I will have the beauty of a blooming poinsettia in my home.

After the poinsettia has finished blooming, I will repot. The plant is still in last year’s pot. I amy prune a few branches back, keep it in the shady shelter place it has lived all year and continue to water as I have done this past year. Perhaps my “green thumb” has learned how to keep a poinsettia alive.

The appearance of poinsettias mark the beginning of the Christmas season regardless of where you live.

amtolle