If we succeed in making Christmas plants survive, we will now observe their needs so that these red leaf plants remain healthy for the rest of the year and flower again at Christmas. After flowering is complete, we will see the bracts disappear, the red leaves fall, but this is part of the natural process of the Christmas plants, because the bracts protect the flowers. This loss, Poinsettia no longer needs them. Someone threw them then thought they were dying. Don’t do it, Poinsettia is a living creature that can survive and grow until the next December, when it will bloom again. But for this you need care, like all plants. What are they? What should we do since the fall of the red leaves? What should we do to take care for a Poinsettia?
Christmas Flower Season
After flowering, Poinsettia needs us to add a little liquid fertilizer to the irrigation water. This can be a universal fertilizer or slow release fertilizer, following the manufacturer’s instructions regarding the amount. Every 10 days is enough.
Transplant
Once they have dropped their red leaves, if you have available land, the ideal is to move them to the garden. But if you live in an area where there is snow, or you don’t have land, you can also keep it inside, observe general maintenance and pruning and waiting for spring beforehand.
Poinsettia old leaves
Did you see the yellow leaf? They were from last year, but they can be seen again every year. At the end of January, Christmas plants will run out of leaves (red and green). That’s when you have to trim it. In some lucky homes, observed general care, green leaves were maintained and some even claimed to have kept the red for months.
However, we will prune it after it has run out of leaves.
To do this, cut the stems, leave about 10 cm. high. Gloves must be worn because the sap irritates the skin and mucous membranes. After cutting, cover the ends with melted wax candles.
The rest of Poinsettia
In this situation we will leave the Christmas plants during the winter. Preferably, in a place that is free from heating. Don’t forget that, even if you are silent, you still need irrigation. But limit it to once a week.
Christmas plant transplant
When spring arrives, we will move it to a larger pot, placing it as a mixture of universal substrate, part of peat or humus and part of the sand. At this time and in this new situation, providing good natural lighting and an average temperature of 20 °, poinsettias will emit new shoots. This shoot growth will continue, resulting in good leaf growth during the summer and autumn. This development will be preferred if, in addition to watering, we strive to provide adequate fertilization on a regular basis.
Poinsettia
The Christmas plant blooms again in December, and then begins to refill with bracts (red leaves) but for that it takes a daily period between 12 and 14 hours of total darkness from late September or, at most, early October.
If at home we can’t have it in a room that has hours without light, and we want to have our factory ready with aspects of Christmas, we can artificially create the darkness needed.
To do this, just cover it with dark plastic, with thick cardboard or with a protective hood coated with aluminum foil, at night to reach 14 hours without light. If not, poinsettia will grow, but it won’t bloom. We will have a Christmas plant with green leaves, but not red. In December we will prepare a Christmas factory again, bigger and safer than the previous one.
