Let me know how it goes turning red this Christmas. I just repotted my Pointsetta from last Christmas. Thanks for the tips and wish me luck! Funny you should ask that! I have been thinking about adding that to the post. This is just the push I need — I am going to add how to propagate a poinsettia now. I am so proud to say that we were able to keep one poinsettia healthy from Christmas to !!!!! We have about 5 clusters that are still thriving!!! I love this! All of a sudden I understand what is happening with the Red Leaves.
My plant is nearly 1m tall and quite lush , but no red leaves. After reading your articles I now know how to fix that. I was wondering if you can take cuttings of it and have 2or 3 smaller ones. If that is something that can be done, please let me know the procedure. Glad I can help! You can propagate poinsettias from stem cuttings. Your question has me thinking I should write an article about it!
But, here are the basics: Use healthy new stems cut from vigorous plants. The old stems that flowered this year are not the best cuttings to use. To get new stems, cut the old stems back and keep the parent plants warm, consistently moist, and in a bright location.
When the new stems are about four inches long, you can take new cuttings. Cutting should be inches and have mature leaves.
Treat the base of each cutting with rooting hormone , then place it in a pre-made, moistened hole in clean potting soil. Put the pots with cuttings in plastic bags to keep the humidity high and place in bright, but not direct sunlight. In around three to four weeks your cuttings should have decent roots and can be put into bigger pots and treated like your other poinsettias.
Let me know how it turns out! Thank you for this great info space; have mine which neighbor gave me. She does this every year but first time I kept so long. Did not have info until today but will print more.
Hi Alice- I am going to have to check out that movie. Glad you are going to keep that poinsettia going — and what an awesome neighbor to give you one every year. I bought 2 poinsettias last year and one of them died but the other one lived and none of the leaves, green or red fell off. In fact there are still a couple of red leaves still on there but they are turning slightly greenish now.
It never gets direct light there either. I think you need to start the process of keeping it in a dark, humid environment for 14 hours a day. Then in 4 weeks it should turn red again… a little late for Christmas, but it will add some cheer to winter! I have never put it in the dark but it grows well and is quite lush.
It gets a little direct sunlight each morning, but otherwise has a lot of indirect light. It does have some another plant in with. The plant has clusters of little white flowers that are commonly seen at Christmas potted with poinsettias in Canada.
Good question! I think it must just be part of its natural cycle — it is getting ready to bloom. The long nights of winter must have prompted it to turn red in preparation for flowering. Thank you for the information since my plant is big and cant carry big object can I cover at night a dark cloth please replay.
I think covering it will work. I was placing my miniature poinsettia in my desk drawer over night at work because my office has lights on overnight. Mel, Thanks for your post, very helpful. I am trying to bring a poinsettia back in bloom for the first time. I have what was last year a somewhat scrawny poinsettia plant from Home Depot.
Even though it dropped leaves some time after Christmas I kept nurturing it. In the summer I set it outside and omg it flourished, probably tripled in size. Anyway, if it works, great. Let me know how it works! I know how hard it is to prune something that is doing so well. The first year with 1 plant in a 2-inch pot and the second year I added a new plant about the same size.
This spring they were both nothing but dried up leafless twigs and I just started watering them after I cut back the twigs to 2 inches. All summer I watered them and fertilized regularly on my patio.
This worked last year with moderate results. Please report back with how it works. The idea of a poinsettia advent calendar is genius. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Blog Post. Prev Article Next Article. Keep the plant in bright light, but not in direct sunlight, for at least 8 hours a day. Keep the plant in a warm room where the temperature never gets below 50 degrees F. Blooms can last for months on the plant, but they will eventually fall off.
So will the plant leaves. This is the time to prune it. Cut all stems back to six inches and continue routine plant care. New leaves will emerge. Help your poinsettia to turn red by placing it in total darkness for 14 hours each day, starting eight weeks before you want to display it. During the day, the plant needs bright light, but it should be placed in complete darkness every evening.
You can keep it in the same place as your mushroom log! Even the light from a small night light or street light shining through a window can disrupt the process of turning a poinsettia red again. The plant will need a little extra humidity during this stage. Remember, it is from southern Mexico! An ideal way to get the poinsettia to turn red is to place it in a closet every evening one that is never opened along with a bowl of water.
The bowl of water will increase the humidity level inside the dark closet. In about four weeks the bracts will begin to turn red. Continue the nighttime darkness routine for four more weeks until plant reaches its full red color. Hi, can you please tell me the best way to get my golden poinsettia tree back to life.
Hi Chris. It could be a number of things. Losing leaves could be because of too much water or not enough. Also, the plant might be pot bound. Pull it out of the container and check the roots. Are they tightly wound in a circular pattern? To correct the problem, you would need to break up the root pattern and repot in a slightly larger container. Be sure to give it plenty of water if you repot it. Another possibility is that it is getting too much dry heat from the location in the house.
Is it too close to a heat vent? And it still needs light. Good luck Chris. Let us know what happens. My pointsettia was dying and one day i had a cup of cold coffee in my hand was passing my plant and pour it in a day or two later it was back pretty and green did the coffee have some thing to do with it living it is so pretty now.
I have been going through all the comments and have learned a lot. Will more leaves continue to turn red. Although it is a little late, I still thing ill give it a go and see how it works. Thank you for the advice!! Hi, I was wondering if the leaves turn dark green or light green before turning red. Some of the new leaves are turning red only half of the leaf , some times it seems the leaves are very light green so if we keep it in the box for a day they get a very nice dark green.
Not sure if this is better or worse. May the light green is better and its not getting enough light? I have 10 poinsettias planted in front of my house. I did not prune them throughout the year because I did not anticipate leaving them in all year, but by September, the plants were huge about 3 feet wide and 3 feet tall.
At this point, there are a lot of red leaves and the new leaves coming in are red. Do you think it will be ok if I stop covering them? I am beginning to get worried for the plant as the bags are starting to cause the leaves on the plant to grow impacted.
Should I stop and give my plants time to readjust and expand their leaves? Or should I continue covering them for 3 more weeks? Hi Brian. If it were me, I would conduct an experiment at this point. Continue to cover at least one and not the day to day changes between it and the uncovered plants. I would love it if you did this and reported back on your findings. I would especially pay close attention to the uncovered plants for the first signs of reversion or loss of redness back to green.
I live in Upcountry Maui and the Poinsettias always seem to thrive here. Once the leaves have turned red most of them is it OK to leave in normal light again? My experience is that once the leaves have turned red, you can put them out in full light. I just wanted to say I was so impressed by all the answers.
I have never been to a website where there were so many thorough answers!!! Thank you!! When you say the plant needs a humid environment during the day, can I put it on a window sill in a centrally heated room. Will spraying the soil give it sufficient humidity? Jenny, rather than spray the foliage, i would place the container in a saucer of stones and water.
As long as moisture remains in the saucer, you should be fine. I have never been able to get a poinsettia to live past Jan-Feb until last year. Here it is 10 months later and my poinsettia is healthy green and vibrant.
I re-potted it in spring and fertilized it once. Anyway, I am going to try to get it to bloom red for this Christmas. I will keep you apprised of the outcome. Thank you for all of your wonderful work and advice. Hi, I have a three year old poinsettia that has never been trimmed, puned, or pinched. It has become very leggy and woody, with leaves only at the top. Is it safe to cut it back to about half its current size, leaving only a few stems with leaves?
It is fine to cut back some of the stems Jamie. New growth should result from just below your cuts. Cutting or pruning is a great way to stimulate new growth and invigorate your plant. You may also want to assess where you plant is located. Very leggy plants tell me it needs more light. Nutrients are depleted a little more with every watering. Eventually nothing is left to feed the plant until you add it back with fertilizer. My four year old poinsettia blooms all summer, brightening up the deck in Maine with small but very intensely red bracts.
It winters in the cool guest room with generally only natural light. The leaves are getting very ratty and now when it loses leaves none grow back. What must I do to grow leaves without interrupting the bloom? David, it may be time for potting up your plant.
Remove it from its existing pot and check the roots. I also think you need to cut the plant back a bit to rejuvenate it. Pruning stimulates new growth. This plant might just need a makeover above and below ground. You an also fertilize with a a diluted mix of liquid fertilizer about half strength until you plant has settled in for a few weeks.
Also, if you transplant and cut back, keep it out of all day direct sun for a couple weeks. But make sure it has enough sun too. I have a poinsettia I bought last November. It is now May and it has stayed red and healthy the whole time. Is this normal? Mine was the same way but now the red leaves have finally all fallen off.
Pretty green leaves now. Based in Dublin ireland, we have 4 poinsettias since Christmas that still have their white bracts in place. They are inside in a very bright room out of direct sunlight. They have new growth shoots approx 4 inches high shooting above the white bracts.
I water them only when quite dry. What would be your advise in terms of pruning while the bracts are still present and should I pop them outside for the summer Dublin temps are 12 to 20degrees centigrade. The plants are approx 18 inches high. Is it unusual for the white bracts to be still in place — only one or two of the leaves have dropped to date.
Hi Brendan. Your plants seem quite happy indoors. Your temps are on the cool side but not too cool I think. I would place them outdoors in a container or in ground and keep an eye on them. I would wait a bit either way and let the plants acclimate to their new environment first.
Hi, I have a poinsettia that is really two separate plants in the same pot. One red and the other white. I have had them for about three or four years now. I put them outside in the spring and forget about them until fall. Now however I have two to three ft plants with almost a barky type stem and few leaves. Most of the leaves are green with the exception of the topmost few which are smaller and red or white repectivly.
Should I cut the whole thing back to four to six inches and start over or just let it go the way it is? Also if I plant such a large plant in the ground, will it make it throught the winters or will it die? I live in eastern Tennessee.
Thanks for any help or advice you can give. Thanks, John. Pruning it is up to you John. It will do well either way. But it is not cold-hardy for Tennessee. Then you can plant outside or keep in a pot and bring it back in next fall. Celebrate the fact that your plant is growing tremendously. The leaves turning red has everything to do with providing the right about of light and darkness as referenced in my article and the various comments and replies in this post.
Just keep it happy as you have been doing and try again next year. Otherwise, you can try removing them by hand. I am in Jamaica and have two poinsettias I bought last year.
Found your suggestions and tried to follow this them year. I started in October with putting a big black thrash bag over my plants for 12 hours and giving them sun during the days. Unfortunately I had to be away for conferences and meetings 4 times and so the treatment was not consistent. However last Saturday I returned after 3 days and both plants have a few red leaves!!!
I am so happy. Do I continue with the no light treatment for more red? Yay Paulette! I would love to see the comparison if you kept only one covered going forward to continue the experiment vs. It is the perfect opportunity to observe the direct impact your efforts will have by going forward with just the one.
It will make such a great comparison and learning opportunity. Please report back whatever you do. It will be fun to hear more about this. Thanks for checking in Paulette. They were doing fine,; but all of a sudden many of the leaves are turning brown on the edges and curling up. I have not been watering them until i felt that the soil was dry. Any thoughts? Thanks for any tips..
The brown margins on the leaves are from dryness of soil or fertilizer burn. Adding too much and the result is fertilizer burn. However, if you added the fertilizer after the browning curled leaves, it was that the soil was too dry.
Once springs comes, you should see recovery, especially once it warms up enough to put it back outside. I bought a few poinsettias five days ago.
I knew nothing about them other than that they were pretty and cheap. After five days! Is there any way to halt or slow the process or is it now too late for this season? Let me look into this and see if I can offer any more information on this today. Let us know what happens as well over time. Would be interesting to know. I got this plant from my mom, It is real healthy and is all green. If it lives thru this Christmas ,I will try doing what you are saying for next Christmas.
Thank You. Ive researched and failed.. I made a cover that fits in the cracks in the doors of a cabinet we are only using for this plant and here we are with dark , very dark in fact , green leaves and only a hint of red speckles in the stems.. Seriously I started talking to it to get it to respond but I think I will put it in an unused room and call all you who make it happen..
Well Jeanne, you get a gold star for being such a trooper. It sounds like you did everything right. You are a person after my own heart. Yes, you could buy a plant for a few bucks and have all the red you want.
But what you did is so much more interesting. I live in Kansas City. I put my poinsettias outdoors, in the Spring, when the night temps are 59 degrees or warmer. Then, bring them back in, in the Fall, when the temps are 59 at night. I have three poinsettias: a 1 year old, a 2 year old, and a 3 year old.
Nothing out of the ordinary, that is, until this year! In November, one plant started turning red. Now, the other two are turning red. Seriously…how can this be? They are all in an east facing window. The oldest one has turned first, now the 2 year old one is turning, and I just noticed the stems turning red on the one year old plant. These plants are in the same location every year when I bring them in.
Each was purchased at a different store a year apart. I am baffled! I have tried to force poinsettias red, in the past. All that ever happened is, they died. I gave up. Celebrate your success or good fortune, and know that many people reading this will be jealous! Thank you for the answer to my question. We are enjoying them and I have been posting pictures on Instagram and on facebook for my friends and family.
I love poinsettias! I have been putting my potted poinsettia in a closet every night without fail for a month. Many have been red for a week or two; others are their usual color. The plant is rather large and seems very healthy, losing a few leaves now and then just as it has done all year. But at this point you could keep the experiment going to find out, and then you can let us all know, or settle for what you have now.
I would love it if you would find a way to block the light and keep the experiment going. Thanks Joe. I started covering the poinsettia with a thick black garbage bag inside the closet. I did it for two weeks or so but saw nothing. In all, I put it in the closet every night for about seven weeks without seeing a leaf change at all- only the stems turned red. I am stunned. To reiterate, I have not been putting the plant in the closet or anything for weeks, and now some leaves are changing.
I think that the plant may be getting less water my wife has watered it perhaps weekly since I gave up on it in frustration but anyway, something other than the darkness is making the difference. I wish I could tell you what it is! Aim for daytime temperatures of 65 to 70 F. In spring, cut the poinsettia plant back to about 6 inches tall to stimulate new growth and encourage future bushiness.
At the same time, fertilize the poinsettia every two weeks with a liquid, water-soluble fertilizer made for houseplants. Mix 1 teaspoon of liquid fertilizer with 1 gallon of water and use it to water the plant. Store the mixture in a container with a lid for future use. You'll want to continue fertilizing the plant throughout the year until the beginning of December.
Starting in late September, place the poinsettia in a spot where it's in complete darkness for approximately 13 hours each night. The shortened hours of daylight and increased time spent in the dark ready it to bloom and produce red bracts again around mid-November.
To ensure the poinsettia receives total darkness, place it in a closet or underneath a box during the nighttime hours to shut out all light.
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