Tips on keeping your poinsettia beautiful

Did you get a poinsettia for Christmas and now you are wondering how to care for it? Although it is not as easy to care for as the Christmas cactus, poinsettias can look magnificent well into spring and can rebloom next year with a few additional steps. 

With more than 150 varieties of poinsettias, intensive breeding has led to a variety of colors from the traditional red and white, but also pinks, speckled, orange, burgundy and more. There also are several different forms of the bracts, the modified leaves that look like the flowers. I recently received a cultivar called "Winter Rose" that looks similar to clusters of roses. 

The University of Florida’s Environmental Horticulture Department is the leading researcher for testing new cultivars and consumer preferences for poinsettias grown in the Deep South. The poinsettia cultivars you see in the stores are often based on this research. 

The best poinsettias for the landscape in central and north Florida are varieties that naturally bloom in early to mid-November. With a late flowering variety, blooming may be interrupted by cold weather in the landscape. 

Once you have your poinsettia home, enjoy the blooms and keep the plants in a bright area with indirect sunlight for at least six hours a day. If you are planning on planting the poinsettia in the landscape, you may want to keep it on the porch to benefit from the bright light until it can be planted. 

Speaking from experience, the quickest way to kill a poinsettia is to let it dry out. Overwatering doesn’t help either. Although those decorative sleeves may be pretty, take them off because it will keep the plant soggy and cause it to decline. 

When the leaves and bracts begin to fall off in April, you can transition the plant outside by cutting the stem down to 4-6 inches on each branch and placing the pot in a shady area for a couple of weeks. If you prefer to keep the plant in a pot, just replant it to a larger pot and follow the same guidelines. 

Once it is acclimated, choose a sunny, well-drained area that will not receive any artificial light at night, so don’t plant them under your window, near security lights, or by the streetlights. Poinsettias bloom when there are longer periods of darkness for several weeks during the fall. If it senses light during the night, it will mess up its internal clock. 

Make sure you pick a large enough area because poinsettias become a large shrub in the landscape. It will never look like the potted plant again, but it can still be beautiful. Plant it to the same depth as it was in the pot, mulch, and keep it moist. It is very important to keep it moist at all times and not dry out while it’s in the landscape or a pot. If it dries out, some of the lower leaves will drop off. 

Prune it back to about 12 to 18 inches from the ground around Memorial Day and Labor Day, leaving 4 leaves on each stem. This will allow it to develop into a more compact plant and not become leggy. Fertilize it with a slow-release fertilizer each time you prune. Hopefully by October, you will start to see the first bit of color in the leaves and a lovely display by the holidays. 

If you keep the poinsettia in a pot, it will need complete darkness for a least 13-14 hours each day and bright light the rest of the day starting in October in order to get colorful bracts. 

With a little maintenance, you can keep your Christmas gift or decoration going for years to come. For more information on growing poinsettias in the landscape, visit the EDIS document on the topic at https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ep349. 

— Dr. Denise DeBusk is the Environmental and Community Horticulture Extension Agent for UF/IFAS Extension Alachua County. Contact her at ddebusk@ufl.edu or 352-955-2402.