Do you treat your Christmas Poinsettia as an annual, and throw it way when it finally loses all those beautiful bracts, or do you care for it, baby it, and suffer its dormancy in order to bring it back into glorious bloom next December?
Can you guess which approach I take with a Christmas poinsettia?
I’ll give you a hint. This is my second poinsettia, a gift from my husband. I left my first one in the car. Overnight. Temperatures down to 10 degrees.
Ha… I don’t even get one anymore. They don’t fare well in my house. Too hot too dry no light. I have a glass ornament poinsetta that I put on the tree each year. I guess that would be perennial. 😉
I’ve kept mine going a few years now- after the leaves drop off in spring I cut it back and it grows in again thicker. I’ve never got it to repeat the red color- I tried one year putting it in a box for timed period of darkness. It didn’t work so well. Nice foliage though.
Lisa – My house is cold and dry with lots of light, but I am ready to let it bloom and then it go. I like poinsettia ornaments!
Jeane – I applaud anyone who gives it a try – and the foliage is nice.
I treat mine as a perennial. I had one that lasted 4 years and one that lasted 3 years, and they both died last fall. Now I have a new (Dec 2014) white one that will hopefull live on. The other two lived well, rebloomed, flourished right up until their demise in a entryway whose temp is 55 or less in winter (and possibly as high as 70 in summer).