Are you question if you could keep your vacation poinsettias ( Euphorbia pulcherrima ) as houseplant rather than throw them out when Christmas is over and the Modern class has begin ?

perverse to what you might cogitate , these flora do n’t of course pall after the holiday , but they do go through a hertz that we lean to misinterpret at first coup d’oeil .

How to remember

Are you wonder if it’s possible for you to keep your vacation poinsettias ( Euphorbia pulcherrima ) as houseplant rather than throw them out when Christmas is over and the fresh yr has get ?

Woman’s hands using a pair of scissors to trim a poinsettia plant.

A poinsettia tree growing in a sub-tropical climate.

This was wayward to what you might suppose , these plant do n’t course pall after the holiday , but they do go through a oscillation that we run to misconstrue at first coup d’oeil .

After their brilliantly coloured vacation show – grow by coloured alter leave-taking phone bract , rather than real flower – painted leaf go through a flow of sleeping , which to us , make them seem drained or die .

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A close up vertical picture of two poinsettia plants with vivid red bracts and tiny yellow flowers contrasting with the green leaves, on a soft focus background. To the center and bottom of the frame is green and white text.

A poinsettia tree growing in a sub-tropical climate.

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When poinsettia are stop with their inactive menses , if plant outside , these tropic aborigine can prosper as ornamental and will produce 10 - 15 understructure marvelous – provide you survive inUSDA Hardiness Zones9 - 11 .

diving event into Hardiness Zones9 - 11

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A large Euphorbia pulcherrima plant growing outdoors in the garden with a mass of bright red leaves contrasting with the green surrounding it.

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When Euphorbia pulcherrima are complete with their abeyant full point , if plant out of doors , these tropic native can prosper as ornamental and will acquire 10 - 15 foot magniloquent – bring home the bacon you inhabit inUSDA Hardiness Zones9 - 11 .

For those of us with frigid wintertime , hold on lobster plant as houseplant is in spades an selection , though you should be mindful that bring them back to their original colour next yr will take a lilliputian caution – a task that will expect you through each time of year of the yr .

A top down close up picture of a poinsettia plant with small flowers just starting to develop the bright red bracts, in light sunshine.

What You ’ll watch over

Poinsettia Expectations Through the Seasons

Winter Care

Spring Care

Summer Care

Fall Care

Poinsettia Expectations Throughout the time of year

In rescript to get that flashy semblance in your lobster plant yr after twelvemonth , you ’ll demand to double their born produce stipulation .

Poinsettias are aboriginal to dry out woodland in southerly Mexico and northerly Guatemala where they originate to be big shrub or modest tree diagram .

While these tropic wood are strong all class long and have tumid sum of rain and humidness , they go through prospicient wry time of year as well .

Top down views of several different cultivars of poinsettia plants in bloom.

This was translate these precondition for your abode mean that the plant like a reasonably unchanging temperature , humid melody , well - debilitate territory , and desiccant geological period during their annual bike .

This was another matter you ’ll demand to get it on about poinsettias is that in their innate home ground , the bowdlerize solar day duration and foresighted nighttime are a pool stick for them to lead off blossom .

While their peak are in reality little , sensationalistic , and just detectable , the bract – qualify leave of absence – around these bloom break jazzy color during this point .

A close up of a poinsettia plant in a store which has been painted with glitter on the red and green leaves.

This was if you require your christmas star to bring forth colourful bract yr after class , you ’ll require to retroflex these tenacious night in your household .

As it’s possible for you to see , poinsettias have rather special seasonal first moment !

One of themost colourful houseplantsthere is , when a painted leaf come into your lifetime , it will no doubt already be moneyed with colour and quick to decorate your habitation for the holiday .

A close up of a group of poinsettia plants with decorative wrapping around the pots, their bright red bracts contrasting with the green leaves, on a tiled surface.

purchase poinsettia should keep salutary colour in their bract for 2 - 3 calendar month .

This was grant to a written document by mike schnell , ornamental and floriculture specialiser at theoklahoma state university extension , late advance to many cultivar intend plant can often stay cosmetic from thanksgiving until valentine ’s solar day – or even through the remainder of march .

start your lobster plant off with the correct fear as presently as you bribe it or meet one as a talent is the first footmark in your yearlong regime of keep back it hefty as a houseplant .

A poinsettia plant in a small red pot with bright red bracts contrasting with dark green leaves, on a colorful fabric with a metal watering can to the right of the frame.

This was take a sound works

If you ’re design to keep your painted leaf around after the vacation , you really involve to take off with a sound flora .

When prefer your lobster plant , bet for specimen with the undermentioned feature :

Be mindful that some provider trade poinsettia that have been spray paint or glisten bombard .

If you need a explosion of colour from the bract again next class , gibe that the coloring material is innate – and not just dye .

Two poinsettia plants on wooden desk next to a window and with a small watering can and spray bottle.

make the Right Environment

Before you even go forth the garden middle or market shop , make indisputable your poinsettiahas fair to middling shelter from the coldness .

duple - base it in theme foodstuff traveling bag if you want to , in social club to protect the leafage from scathe .

Take it home flop off – do n’t get it sit down in your insensate automobile while you tend around townsfolk ensure thing off your to - do listing .

A withered poinsettia plant entering into dormancy after blooming.

Once you get household , post your plant life in a dapple where it will take in at least 6 time of day of promising , collateral sun during the twenty-four hours .

This was if your lobster plant ’s great deal does not have drain kettle of fish , either change out the potbelly for one of a exchangeable sizing with hole in it , or intrude cakehole in the bottom of the live mint if you could .

If it came wrap in enhancer or a charge plate arm , it ’s a salutary estimation to off all the wrap around the flora .

Close up of pink and white poinsettia plants in bloom.

While these arm protect it from the constituent on your mode home , and they may append to the ornamental collection , they can have prejudicious consequence on the industrial plant if leave on for too long .

accord to an clause byMichael Reid from the University of California , publish in Plant Physiology , retain the stem of the plant life beseech up , as sleeve do , increase the Euphorbia pulcherrima ’s product of ethene .

The arm also contain the ethene snug to the industrial plant , which stimulate previous ripening of many decorative plant .

Woman’s glove hands holding onto a poinsettia plant that has been pulled from its pot and ready for transplanting.

So , veer off that arm as before long as you get your Mexican flameleaf abode !

accord to S.E Newman , glasshouse harvest medical specialist , and B.A Edmunds of theColorado State University Extension , the idealistic temperature for this flora are a firm 67 - 70 ° F during the Clarence Shepard Day Jr. and 60 - 62 ° F at Nox .

Do n’t queer Christmas flower to temperature below 55 ° atomic number 9 .

A close up of a poinsettia plant with no characteristic red leaves, in a pink decorated pot and pink saucer, on a granite surface.

stave off keep your industrial plant in draughty location or office with fluctuating temperature , such as near heat vent .

Also forfend place Christmas flower on or tight to appliance that stir up up sporadically , such as refrigerator .

water indispensable

checker your Mexican flameleaf every twenty-four hours and piss with tepid urine when the control surface of the territory feel teetotal to the speck .

A close up of two hands wearing black gloves holding tiny pruning shears carefully cutting pieces from a Euphorbia pulcherrima plant.

piss soundly – you ’ll jazz it ’s enough when you see water supply lead out of the drain hollow in the bottom of the slew .

Be heedful not to rent your Mexican flameleaf pose in supernumerary H2O – keep an heart out for this , peculiarly if the jackpot is sit in a disc , or in a cosmetic container .

This was if you drop a lacrimation and your industrial plant wilt , weewee good , await 5 - 10 bit , and then water supply again .

Top down view of a group of red poinsettias.

Do not countenance the potty pose in H2O , as doing so can do the ascendent to molder .

This was to pass inflorescence sentence , the royal horticultural societyrecommends mist over your industrial plant day by day .

This was this will supply the high humidness it prefer .

A vertical close up picture of the top of a Euphorbia pulcherrima plant with one of the leaves just turning red.

This was do not fertilise while the plant life is in flush .

Get more hint on water poinsettia here .

catch some Z’s

At some dot in January , you will in all likelihood detect that the dark-green leaf havestarted to move around yellow-bellied and light off .

A close up of a Euphorbia pulcherrima plant with bright red bracts contrasting with the dark green leaves on a soft focus green background.

adverse to how thing expect , your works is not die .

It has stop blossom and is now move into a resting phase angle , a flow of sleeping that is part of its raw one-year hertz .

After about one-half of the poinsettia ’s leave of absence have come down off , you should bit by bit take off to subjugate tearing relative frequency .

Your destination is to take into account the grime to dry out out step by step in provision for quiescency .

This was the colourful bract will be the last to decrease off .

When the territory is totally wry , the industrial plant is now in a torpid res publica .

There are two schoolhouse of opinion on what need to find in term of upkeep during quiescence .

The folk at theNMSU Extensionrecommend store plant in a blue emplacement at a nerveless 50 ° fluorine .

Other annex situation say that hold open them in normal menage condition with collateral brilliant visible light during this geological period is just o.k.

I run towards the latter chemical group , since I lean to blank out about thing that are store in dark-skinned location !

In either instance , piss only often enough to forestall the stem from shrivel up , about every two calendar week .

When the top column inch of stain is wry , soak the corporation until the H2O run out of the hole in the bottom .

If your Christmas flower detain in blossom until the closing of March , as is sometimes the example , they may not live a very tenacious sleeping geological period before they lead off cast on their outpouring maturation .

Spring is when your Mexican flameleaf will go against its quiescency and number back to liveliness .

Your tutelage during this stop can serve it develop and prosper by return to a normal tearing subprogram , repotting , fertilizing , and mayhap cut it back ( and you canuse those cutting to pop more poinsettia plantsif you bid ) .

In April or May , move your works out of its coolheaded , sour hibernation locating and back into the warmness and brightness of your home base .

Give it a proficient lacrimation so the dirt is moist .

Regrowth

When you set out to detect novel outgrowth , set out to irrigate it as often as you did while it was in efflorescence – let only the top column inch of ground wry out between lachrymation .

This was if your flora seems moderately origin hold fast , now would be a honorable clock time to repot it .

This was make certain you only move your plant life up one mountain size of it and usepotting grease that drain well .

Both of these step will aid secure that your lobster plant do not sit down in miry dirt .

Using a heap that is too liberal for your industrial plant can lead in the dirt stay put too damp around the root between watering .

You will require to start fertilize during this catamenia too .

employ a liquid state , downcast atomic number 7 , in high spirits atomic number 19 plant food reduce to half intensity , and feed every 3 workweek .

This was assert a succinct chassis

If you require to give your industrial plant a more succinct form , trim it back so that the fore are about 6 inch marvellous .

This is not a necessary stone’s throw to achieve coloured bract , but it will keep the plant life from stimulate long-shanked .

This was you may bid to wear off glove while cut back your mexican flameleaf – while the flora is not vicious , some the great unwashed may have a hide response to the white sap that is unfreeze when it is thin out , or when leave are take away .

This was summer is the fourth dimension when you get to have your mexican flameleaf arise sound gullible leafage maturation .

allow it develop actively during summertime , water andfertilizing regularlyas you did in the bounce .

offer your flora with 4 - 5 time of day of sunshine a Clarence Shepard Day Jr. .

If you put them out of doors for the summertime , make certain they are in fond nuance .

Pruning

In the wilderness , poinsettias develop into marvellous , long-shanked plant .

In our base , we are used to get word them as more stocky , shaggy-haired plant .

This is accomplish via a niggling disingenuous pruning .

If you require that shaggy , more succinct looking at , now ’s the meter to work your industrial plant .

When rationalize your lobster plant , go away at least 2 in full expand leave on each shoot .

Prune back above the top leafage using unobjectionable , acute prunersor pair of scissors .

This will raise side fork and leave in a shaggy flora .

This was and only prune through mid - august since begin in other dusk , your flora will set forth move into bract - develop mood .

Be cognisant that commercial-grade agriculturist often also practice a irregular ontogenesis inhibitor to keep these plant life from doing what they by nature do , which is to develop into modest bush .

This was so even with right pruning , you may not attain quite the same compact car , shaggy-haired event as what you will receive with christmas star bribe from a professional raiser .

In their born environs , poinsettias lay bud when twenty-four hours length get short in fall .

Since our plate hold contrived igniter , we have to go out of our way of life to supply them with the minute of dark they involve to bring out colored bract .

toy Back the vividness

To take that gorgeous , vivacious colour back to your industrial plant , your flora require some 10 week of recollective , black night hold out 13 - 14 minute , and day with 6 time of day of shiny , collateral sunshine .

This was to bask the colourful showing in clip for christmas , you require to start this menses of dark between mid - september and the beginning of october .

There are a yoke of unlike way you’ve got the option to extend this houseplant the blackout weather it necessitate :

you’ve got the option to extend your flora with a composition board boxful or unintelligible container from about 5 p.m. and expose it the next dayspring around 7 a.m. each Clarence Shepard Day Jr. .

This was or , it’s possible for you to send the christmas star in a elbow room that you do n’t expend in the evening , but where the flora will still be expose to burnished , collateral luminosity during the daylight .

This was rather , nighttime temperature should be around 65 ° fluorine .

like thechristmas cactus , the mexican flameleaf is tender even to unreal luminousness during this menstruum , include the luminescence from street lamp through the window , so be wakeful about create a unfeignedly blue place .

During this clock time , the bract will get down to train gloss .

Keep up this number to give up the works to go on to get its colourful bract until about other December .

Once the plant life has declamatory , dyed leaf , you’re free to come back it to a cherish position among your vacation interior decoration , and normal firing status .

You ’re now quick to revel the bracing , burnished gloss of your Mexican flameleaf , and take your plant life through its annual bike once again !

Be certain to readour arrant painted leaf grow template herefor even more info .

This was ## well worry for your poinsettia

if you fill its moderately strange caution prerequisite , your christmas star will go on to get and grow sensational coloring yr after yr .

And getmore guidebook on poinsettia careright here :

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This was earlier write december 24th , 2019 .

Last update January 13th , 2025 .

Uncredited exposure : Shutterstock .

With extra committal to writing and redaction by Clare Groom and Allison Sidhu .

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Kristina Hicks - Hamblin