The holidays are over, all of the eggnog has been drunk, and the ornaments of the season will soon be packed away for another year. The living gifts from others and to ourselves still linger in foil wrapped pots. Somehow, they look a bit over-dressed for the January blahs.

Poinsettias start to lose their leaves and showy bracts shortly after Christmas. We often think of these bracts as flowers, but in reality they are colorful leaf-like structures that surround the tiny flowers. The true poinsettia flower is an insignificant yellow affair right in the middle of each cloud of color. The flowers themselves most likely dropped before Christmas. Once the flowers are gone, the plant goes into a decline.

One way to stem some of the leaf drop is to make sure you don’t skip a day checking for water needs. These plants in small pots usually need watering once a day indoors in the dry heat. Large pots might go every other day. If the soil totally dries out, many leaves will drop like snowflakes. This is also the result if you water too much. Try for the middle road; damp soil all of the time but not wet.

Now is a good time to remove the foil, slip a saucer underneath, and treat the plant like any other houseplant. Keep the poinsettia away from heat vents, leaky windows, and doorways that provide a stream of traffic coming and going.

Fertilize the poinsettia once a month with houseplant fertilizer or fish emulsion, mixed according to label directions. If your poinsettia still has yellow flowers in the middle of the bracts, wait to fertilize it until the flowers have dropped-talking flowers here, not the big colorful bracts that look like the flowers.

Poinsettia (Euphorbia pulcherrima) has been considered a poisonous plant for many years. An Ohio State University study proved otherwise some years ago and has been reinforced by numerous other studies since. Poinsettias are quite safe. Still discourage children, pets, and strange adults from eating any part of it as it can cause stomach upset. The milky sap that oozes from injuries to the branches can also cause skin irritation.

If you would like to be an obsessive poinsettia grower, give it six hours of indirect light every day in a room with temperatures in the 65-70 degree F. range. Here is the obsessive part: Put it to bed at night in a 50 degree F. room.

My poinsettias are going to suffer along with me in a 73-degree room day and night. I will not be shuffling my plants off to bed at nightfall but you may be as fixated as you like.

Since there are so many beautiful colors and forms every year, I prefer to treat mine as annuals and discard them when they finish their display and /or drop all of their leaves. At any rate, a little care now can give you a couple more weeks of indoor color display.

If you wish to keep your plants and attempt to get them to blossom next Christmas, move them outdoors when nights are staying above 50 degrees. Treat them as you would any houseplant spending the summer outdoors. Next fall, you do have to be obsessive about moving them into light and darkness if you want those colorful bracts.

---Posted by Anne K Moore January 5, 2009---