Hello Friends ! Do you Know Poinsettia is one of the largest selling Christmas plant
in the world.
This is due to its attractive color changing bright foliage that look like a bunch of flowers.
In this short episode we will look into 5 Tips on how to keep your poinsettia in tip-top
condition over the Christmas period and if you still have green leaves, a simple hack
to convert to bright pink or red.
Thats Coming up.
Poinsettia, botanically Euphorbia pulcherrima, which means the most beautiful euphorbia.
It is a perennial plant.
These are one of the most popular Christmas plants throughout the world.
Now we will look into 5 Useful Gardening Tips and Ideas on how to keep your poinsettia healthy
with bright colored foliage in winter and if your plant has not yet developed the leaf
colors there are some tips as well.
1.
Watering: Poinsettias don't like a lot of water.
Overwatering can lead root rot and plant death.
So how frequent and how to water poinsettias?
Actually there are two methods of watering this plant.
Firstly, you can give it some sips of water like once every other day or give a full drench
once every week.
Or If you check your plants daily, then finger dip method should also work well, thats dipping
your finger into the soil to an inch to check the moisture and water it only if fully dry.
2.
Soil: Like any other plant, you should provide these plants with a well draining soil.
You can choose your regular well draining potting mix to plant these.
I have shown some potting mix recipes in my video titled Perfect Potting Mix formula.
You can check that at end screen of this video and also in description.
3.
Temperature and Sunlight: It needs warmth and light.
Its suitable temperature falls between 15 - 20 degree Centigrade.
No direct noon sunlight.
Few Hours of morning sun is sufficient for the plant.
If your plant has only green leaves and no bright red or pink leaves yet for Christmas
decoration, then You need to follow one simple hack to change your poinsettia color to red
or pink.
Will discuss this in Tip number 5 at the end.
4.
Fertilizer: You can fertilize Poinsettias once in a month preferably with a water soluble
NPK feeds particularly with a nitrogen rich fertilizer with higher N value, but not compulsory
if you do not have that.
This is because we are mainly focusing on its leaf growth.
Again its NPK basics.
Well, You can also feed it with diluted compost tea once in about 15 days.
But It can also do well with your regular general purpose compost like a handful of
vermiccompost or decomposed cowdung powder once or twice a month.
5.
Now a Simple Tip to Turn your poinsettia leaves to bright red or pink in winter and keep it
ready for Christmas decoration.
Before this hack, you should know the mechanism by which this happens.
The Poinsettia is a light sensitive plant.
When you deprive light to this plant in its leafing stage, the chlorophyll used to turn
the leaves green cannot be produced.
As a result of this total darkness and lack of light, the only color that will be produced
is red.
This is called photoperiodism.
We will not go into the details.
You can google and learn more details about this.
Well, Now about the Gardening Idea, Starting October or November, you must keep your plant
in total darkness for minimum of 14 to 16 hours each days, like from evening around
4p.m. to next day morning 8a.m.
You can either shift your plant into a dark room every day at this time or make an enclosure
box to cover the plant during this time daily till your desired color is achieved.
Do not forget to shift the plant to light and follow the regular watering and other
care tips in the day time.
If you follow this for a month or two, you should get your great looking plant ready
for Christmas.
So, there you have it folks, if you have any more tips or queries, please do write in the
comment box below the video.
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Happy Gardening.