Suicidal Poinsettias

[mattl]

Kind of puzzled. Every year I buy about a dozen cheap poinsettias to put around the house. Every year 1, 2 or 3 will simply give up and die. They all look healthy when I buy them, get exactly the same care in my home so why do they die?

I have a group of three on a coffee table in the living room and of the three one just died. Same amt. of light and water. I'm great with plants, have a houseful of all kinds, some older than me, some 10' tall, I even get my orchids to re-bloom- so I know what I'm doing, this just puzzles me.

 

[qsd-dan]

What's your indoor temperatures? They prefer 65-70F and 4-6 hours of light. Keep them away from drafts and fluctuating temperatures such as fans, heaters, fireplaces, HVAC ducting, ect.

Speaking of suicide and death, these are poisonous to animals and humans. Wash your digits after handling them.

 

[rp2813]

Matt, have you checked the dead ones for root size?  It's very common for two or three plants that have been growing in teeny tiny starter pots to be placed into one larger pot so they appear to be a single large plant.  Often they haven't even sent out roots past the their little spongy block of growing medium.

 

I've had the same problem as you, and won't buy poinsettias anymore unless I know they're a single, mature plant (6" pot at the smallest) that can adapt to something other than a hothouse environment.   What you find mostly today are intended to be throw-away plants. 

 

Poinsettias will grow happily outdoors in my area with a bit of protection from frost, but you have to start with a plant that has a decent sized, healthy root system.  My friend has three of them going now, two in pots and one in the ground, and they are thriving.  He planted them a year ago.  My great aunt had a big one in her front yard.  When I lived in Santa Monica, a poinsettia from the adjacent property was taller than my second floor apartment balcony, and huge blooming branches were resting against the top of the balcony railing. 

 

These plants are not hard to grow, and they grow fast, but when you consider they may have a root system the size of a 2" pot, once plants like that are out of a hot house with perfect growing conditions, all bets are off.

 

[tomturbomatic]

My parents lived in Riverside, CA for a while during WWII and they used to tell us about the Poinsettia and Geranium hedges they had in their yard. 

 

[tomturbomatic]

Love the title of your thread!

If it is insufficient roots causing it, you could try cutting the plant back to a few inches high and then seeing if it will put out new growth.  Do all of the stems die or just one or two? They are individual stems potted together. Do you have any willows on your property? If you soak some willow branches in water, they give up a rooting hormone that you can use to water cuttings to encourage rooting. The other thing you can do is water them with the Miracle Grow Bloom  Boost. The high middle phosphate number not only encourages flowers, but also root development. 

 

[robbinsandmyers]

A friend gave me one a week before Christmas and it promptly died in two days. At least it wasnt like the basil plants I bring home that are limp and dead the next day when I wake up.....

 

[vacerator]

Yes, I bought

them from Meijer last year and they died before Christmas. So this year I found nice placemats, a table runner, and napkins with red and green poinsietta's with black accents in thick Indian soft cotton with a backing. 40% off before Christmas.
They say spot clean only, but I wash my others in cold water and dry on delicate and they are fine. I put a white tablecloth over it all at holiday meal time. We normally eat at the kitchen island.

 

[gansky1]

I have never known there was any other species than suicidal.   Hoping against hope, I've bought them time and again only to have two brown leaves left by Christmas.   I love the flower, especially when they are BIG or smaller in big numbers.  

 

Many years ago, my sis worked for an indoor green-scaping company.  They had the contract for the newest and largest of shopping malls and tended to the poinsettias at the holidays.  They'd throw out a couple dozen a day that had passed.  Some were murdered by patrons, but most just withered and got whisked away.  

 

[sfh074]

I would love to know .....

how they grow them. Every year I buy them and a matter of days they start dropping leaves. There must be a trick since the growers are able to have them looking beautiful ..... before I get a hold of them and bring them home before their inevitable suicide.

 

[foraloysius]

When I still had plants, I had the problem that they never died on me. I never liked them but people like giving them around Christmas. I believe the secret is that they don't like being in the sun. And they don't like a lot of water. They are best kept in pots and then you give them a soak once a week. After the soak you let them drip out. That should be enough.

 

[mattl]

Well the poinsettias are not something I really care about, I have kept a few for years but even when they rebloom it's never as well as when they were new.

I usually got the $.99 4" ones at Lowes or HD but this year HD only had the larger 6" pot for $1.99, got about 10 I think, 3 dead already the rest are doing fine. I do not attribute it to conditions in my home, since the rest are fine. I just find it a bit frustrating to see them simply shrivel and die over a day or two. At .99 I did not care that much but at $1.99 it bugs me.

 

[vacerator]

I used to

put them in a dark place overnight. They like 12 hrs. of light, 12 of dark. They bloomed into February. They are grown in Ontario in hot houses. That may be part of the priblem.

 

[rickc]

They hate being in the cold

and the trip home from the store is often enough exposure to cold weather to cause them to drop their leaves. We have had the most success with buying on mild days and heading straight home from the store.

 

[davey7]

I used to nurse the poinsettia's we would get at work along for a couple years - they were next to a big glass wall (either boiling hot in summer or freezing cold in winter) yet they survived reasonably well after a few years of nurturing. Just watered once a week - literally all the care they got - also not in direct sun, north facing windows.

 

[rp2813]

The bigger the plant, the bigger the blooms, usually.  The tall one outside my Santa Monica apartment had big, dense, puffy, way-beyond-triple blooms that measured nearly a foot across.

 

I think letting these get established in the ground is the best option where winter frosts are light, or under an eave, overhang or patio cover in slightly colder zones.  Pot culture seems to be tricky as a rule.  The linked article seems to agree with me, and its advice can be applied to hospitable areas outside of Florida.  I agree with the advice that in the ground, poinsettias want little care.  Plants about the size of the one pictured in the article, or even a bit larger, used to be seen in the landscape around here.  I think many were lost in the Xmas freeze of 1990 and were never replaced. 

 

As others have suggested, plant or locate your pot in an area shaded from the hottest mid-day sun.  An east or south facing wall would be best.

Help your poinsettia be a repeat performer

One plant is a shining star in our neighborhood and it is growing in front of a neighbor’s home. It has been there all year but just coming into color during the month of November. Have you g…

www.orlandosentinel.com

 

[rp2813]

Well, I guess between this thread and a sighting just a little while ago, the cosmos wants me to try my luck with a couple of plants.

 

I just found a pile of discarded ones in the street awaiting the scooper that will come by on Monday.  There were various sizes and one or two of the plants were the lighter pinkish-coral color.  I got two nice 6" pot size standard types, and another larger round leaf variety.  The tiny block of growing medium was visible on the 6" ones, but since they were out of their pots I could see real roots around the exposed edges of their soil.  Brought them home and put them in pots just as they were.

 

The round leaf one is interesting.  That one is three separate plants that had been in a larger bowl-shaped pot that would typically be used for a hanging plant.  Roots all around the bottom edge.  It fit right into a plastic hanging pot of mine that lost its hanger.  I'm offering that one to my friend.  He likes the unusual.

 

All plants are in the back of the '50 GMC where they're under cover, out of the rain, and will get some brief early afternoon sun.  I'm looking at spots on the back wall of the house (east facing) where the two I'm keeping can go into the ground, assuming they don't go suicidal on me over the course of the winter.

 

 

[mattl]

Wow, nice find!

 

Whenever I get down to Bordine's in Clarkston for a tree I usually pick up one of their "custom" poinsettias.   This is this year's- it's got lots and lots of small flowers rather than several big ones.

 

Behind it the green mass is one of the 2 grapefruit trees that are older than me, my mother started them when she found some grapefruit seeds sprouting.  They are about 8' tall, summer outdoors, winter in, but have never bloomed.

 

[rp2813]

I like that white one Matt.

 

Don't worry about the grapefruit not blooming.  It already has two other strikes against it.  Since it was planted from a seed, there's no telling whether its fruit would be worthwhile anyway.   Citrus varieties sold for agricultural or home garden applications are always grafted onto a more vigorous type of root stock (mainly sour orange).  Grapefruit also requires intense heat to achieve tolerable sweetness, which is why most U.S. commercial crops are grown in Arizona and Texas, so even if yours bore fruit it would likely be bitter and as sour as a lemon.

 

[vacerator]

Bordine's is

a huge place, and expemsive. My Japanese maple came from there. Alos a weeping white pine which died aftyer a few years. Also a $250 tree in 1999. My own uneducated fault. I planted it over a buried downspout drain. They don't like much water. My Limelight Hydrangea tree is much better there.
English Garden's is another overpriced place here. Rick Vespa the owner has been seen in our circles if you get the drift, but he is very down low.