Jim Faust is a teacher.
He teaches Floriculture in what we
used to call the Horticulture Department when I was there.
And now it's called Plant and?
Environmental Sciences.
I'll tell you, everything has to-- they changed--
Always changing the names.
--Ligularia, they changed it to Farfugium.
They changed horticulture.
Everything gets complicated.
But poinsettia has got the same thing.
They do, unfortunately.
[LAUGHS] And where are poinsettias from?
Poinsettias are native to Mexico.
OK.
Yup.
They grow in kind of these deep canyons
on steep canyon walls near beautiful streams
in the mountains.
How lovely.
But we have a special affinity for them
in South Carolina because it was first
introduced to this country, I believe, by a South Carolinian.
Yeah.
Joe Poinsett, who was the first US ambassador to Mexico,
was the first person to send a live poinsettia to the US.
And then it slowly became commercialized.
And of course, he's buried right outside right
in Stateburg--
He is.
--at Church of the Holy Cross.
But in Mexico, the wild variety, I
think you have an example of in front, and let's talk
about how it grows.
Yeah, so this a poinsettia from the wild,
collected there just a couple years ago.
So this is what they look like.
And what's interesting, if you see,
the bract size is quite small compared to these--
And the bract means?
The bract is the modified leaf.
What we would call a petal.
The pet-- yeah.
Sure, yeah, the colorful part.
Yeah, it's the showy part that attracts pollinators.
OK, yeah.
And so, this plant, in the wild,
grows on these mountain streams and is quite beautiful.
And what's interesting is that, if you
look at the botanical drawings that were done soon
after Poinsett sent the plant to the United States,
is that they were quite big bracts.
They did not look like the wild type.
So that's lead us to conclude that Poinsett didn't actually
collect a wild poinsettia.
He collected the plant that was already
in the marketplace that had already been domesticated
by the Aztecs.
By the Aztecs.
What fascinating history!
And I think you have an example of a plant that
looked like the one that he may have sent back over there.
Sure, we have a plant that is a 100-year-old variety--
Woo!
--from 1910, 1920, named St. Louis because that's where it
was found.
And this is typical of the plants
100 years ago, what they look like.
They would get very tall and leggy
and weren't very good potted plants.
In fact, they had two really big problems.
The one was that they got so big and the growers
had trouble selling them in containers.
So what they would do--
[LAUGHS] It was hard to fit in your car and take home, yeah.
It was hard to take home.
And they would take the stems and actually massage the stems.
So you kind of macerate the stem in between your fingers--
But not break it comp--
Not break it, yeah.
Not break it.
Because if you take a poinsettia and bend it--
It'll just snap, yeah.
--it'll just snap.
So if you macerate it, it bends nicely.
And then you go down the stem further and do it again,
and it bends back up.
And so you take a plant that's very tall
and you make it very short immediately.
So the other problem that they had
was that the leaves would fall off
as soon as you took the plants home.
A problem some people still run into, yeah.
There's still a little bit of a problem--
But it's been dramatically improved.
--but it's much, much better, much better.
And so what they would do back in the early 1900s,
the growers would take four plants, put them
in the corners of a pot, and then, in the center of the pot,
they would put a Boston fern.
And so the foliage of the Boston fern
would cover the naked stems of the poinsettia
once all the poinsettia leaves fell off.
[LAUGHS] Well, and poinsettias bloom--
they have certain requirements.
And so talk a little bit about that.
Yeah, well, poinsettias are short day plants,
meaning that they will initiate flowers
when the nights get long.
And of course, that happens in the fall.
So poinsettias naturally start the flowering process
in September.
So that's when the flowering is initiated, really, when we
get about a 12-hour-long night.
And then the days get shorter and they discontinue
to progress toward flowering.
So it takes about nine weeks after short day's start.
And so they start flowering in September.
We don't actually see anything visually until October.
And then November, they're in full bloom.
And so growers can use dark clothes and dark
houses to manipulate that and have
them bloom when they want to.
And of course, mostly we want to have
them bloom a Christmas time.
But you've got one down there that
now blooms at a different time for a special purpose.
Yeah, the pink one here is actually marketed in October
because pink is Susan Komen--
For breast cancer, of course.
We have Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
And so you'll see it in the stores
in South Carolina in October.
And we actually often don't call it a poinsettia at that time
because people don't think of buying a poinsettia.
It's often labeled Euphorbia.
And what is the scientific name for the poinsettia?
It is Euphorbia pulcherrima.
Pulcherrima means the most beautiful.
So it's the most beautiful Euphorb.
And the next is one that perhaps is going
to be marketed at Thanksgiving.
Yeah, this is a gold one.
It's called Gold Rush.
And the idea is that, you know--
Kind of like autumn leaves, yeah.
--again, trying to extend that season so people buy
poinsettias a little bit earlier in the year.
And then next to it, we've got kind of a curlicued one.
Yup, this is a curly variety actually developed
in the 1990s.
So it's been around for a while.
It's still really quite cute.
It's called Winter Rose.
Well, you know, it's compact-seeming.
So for certain people, I'm sure that
works better in their home.
Don't you think?
Yeah, it's--
Yeah, and it's a different look.
It's different.
Some people dislike different.
But, gosh, if you want just the most beautiful of all colors.
Mercy.
Yeah, yeah.
I think this is most beautiful.
It's Peppermint Ruffles, kind of a peachy pink, quite
a soft beautiful plant.
Oh!
It is truly beautiful!
And so these are actually leaves and then
these sort of tiny parts in the middle are the flowers.
Are the true flowers that bare the pollen
and produce the seeds, yeah.
And then this is such a lovely color.
What is this one called?
This one is called Polly's Pink, which is, I think,
the most beautiful pink that we have in the poinsettia world.
Well, I think that sometimes that's
easier to fit into your decor than the blazing reds.
But if you want something that says, "Here I am!"
Boy, we've got him.
You know, and has an appropriate name.
It's Jingle Bell Rock.
[LAUGHS]
So, a very vibrant plant.
It is.
And then, I get this wasn't developed just
for Clemson fans, but?
No, it could have been.
This is the closest thing we have to orange.
We keep trying to get these different colors
and this is Orange Spice.
And in this one, we can see a little bit of the venation,
the green in the leaf.
Which I think is pretty, just every know and then,
to see a touch of that.
It is.
It almost looks-- yeah.
Don't you think?
Yeah.
Though, it looks like Coleus, almost.
It does, doesn't-- yeah.
And those are considered transitional bracts
because you have the green leaves.
And then you have transitional bracts,
which are ones that are kind of confused.
They're not sure if they're a bract or a leaf.
And then on top you have all the bracts.
The ones that are just definitely supposed
to be there to be wonderful and beautiful on the eyes.
And then this one, oh, what a lovely, lovely kind
of greenish--
Yeah, that's a new one.
I don't know if there's a market for green poinsettias
or not, but--
Oh, I think there would.
--we call that one Envy.
Well, my mother's favorite zinnia
was the green zinnia called Envy.
So there certainly is a market, at least in my family,
for things like that.
Yeah, yeah.
Now, some people worry about bringing them in the house
because they think they're poisonous.
And how much of a true problem is that?
Yeah, they are not poisonous.
I've eaten a few in my day and haven't died yet.
So--
And you said they're even used in the cuisine
in certain parts of Mexico?
Well, yeah.
I was in Mexico last year, actually.
And there was a chef actually trying
to promote people eating poinsettias
and served some dishes with poinsettia in them.
And I'm not encouraging people to eat them,
but they're not going to kill you.
So you don't have to worry about that?
And interestingly, you encouraged
us to taste the nectar.
And it was very, very delicious.
It's wonderful!
Tastes like honey.
People, yeah, are not aware that a poinsettia
produces nectar for the pollinators to feed on.
And it's just like a drop of--
It was delicious!
It's absolutely beautiful, yeah.
It was delicious, it was!
We were licking flowers earlier in the show,
if you wonder what we do before "Making it Grow."
Sometimes we do peculiar things.
That was a lot of fun.
Now, how should we take care of them?
Well, there's just a few main things.
And the modern varieties are really easy, really,
when it comes down to it.
But you've got to get a couple of things.
One, you do have to avoid extreme temperatures.
You don't want it to be below 40 or above 80.
So you have a wide range.
In most homes, that's--
That should be fine.
[LAUGHS] In most homes, that's manageable.
But just taking it home on a cold day,
you might be careful not leaving it--
Yeah, not leaving it in the car too long.
And not leaving it in the car, yeah.
And then once you get it home, put it
in a fairly well lit corner of the room.
Don't put it in the darkest spot.
Darkest corner.
They need to do a little bit of photosynthesis
to survive for the few weeks in the summer.
And then the big question is watering.
Watering is the biggest challenge.
In general, we like to say with poinsettia, "wetter is better."
We don't really want them to get really light.
And you can tell by, you know, if you pick up a plant,
how light it is.
You don't want it to be real light.
But then, you don't want it, also,
to be really soaking wet either.
So moist is kind of ideal.
The challenge we have is they often come in pot covers
and foil wraps that hold a lot of water.
So if you put too much water in the pot, they can just--
Oh, sit!
--sit a swimming pool.
And they won't survive, yeah.
And then they will die.
So really, the thing to do is either take that pot cover off,
water it at the sink, let the water pour out
the bottom of the pot, then put the cover back on,
put it back in your living room.
Or punch some holes in the bottom of the foil--
Oh, and put a saucer.
And put the saucer underneath it.
And empty it.
And empty it after the water goes through.
And empty it after it drains, yeah.
But keep it moist, but not soaking wet.
Did your students help you grow these?
They did.
These, actually, are plants from the greenhouse
we brought today.
My class grows a lot of different flowers
in the spring and the fall.
And poinsettias are my favorites.
So I've kind of forced them to grow a lot of poinsettias.
Oh, I'm sure there were no complaints.
And we hope that you will, again, come back in the spring.
We've got another crop in the greenhouse.
And give us some more examples of what
is wonderfully, beautiful in the Floriculture industry.
Sure, we would be glad to.
This is my life--
Thank you.
--growing flowers.
Yeah, well, gosh!
What a wonderful life.
It's a good way to do it, yeah.
Well, thank you so very much.
Thank you, Amanda.
This was just delightful.