Poinsettia Care and Tips: How to Care for the Christmas Plant or Poinsettia

In this article we will explain how to care for, water, and prune the Poinsettia, or Christmas flower, which one of the most well-known Christmas plants, but first, a little background. The Christmas plant or Poinsettia is a flowering plant native to Mesoamerica that can grow up to three meters tall in its natural state. It has whole leaves with a pair of lateral teeth. It also has green and red leaves, so what appear to be enormous, red flowers to the naked eye are actually bracts, which are modified leaves that protect the small flowers.

If you want to have this plant in your home this Christmas and want to know how to keep it in good shape, read this article to discover how to care for the Christmas plant, often known as a poinsettia.

Where to Put the Christmas Plant or Poinsettia

To describe everything about how to care for a poinsettia or Christmas plant, we begin by discussing the best position, the amount of light it requires, and other relevant factors.

The first thing to remember while caring for a Christmas plant is that, while it can be grown outside, it thrives best indoors. In cold weather, avoid taking it outside and keep it away from windows that are frequently opened to avoid coming into touch with draughts. To keep your Poinsettia, Christmas plant healthy, keep it away from draughts and heat sources like radiators, stoves, and other heat sources.

Poinsettia or poinsettia, the Christmas plant, need a lot of light to keep healthy, but the truth is that the more light it gets, the less red its modified leaves or bracts are, which turn green. As a result, if you want it to stay healthy while maintaining its red color, you’ll need to keep it in an area with ambient light but no direct sunlight for several hours at a time. This is how the Christmas plant turns red.

You can use the fact that it is a Christmas decorative plant to brighten and arrange a room such as the living room or the front door of your home.

How to Water the Christmas Plant or Poinsettia

How and when to water the plant Christmas ?  It is not advisable to water its blossoms or foliage, therefore proceed with caution. One thing to remember about the soil or dirt in order to provide the greatest care for the Poinsettia is to avoid soaking it to prevent it from rotting. While the specimen is in vegetative growth, the most practical thing to do is to water it more frequently and in smaller amounts. Allowing the ground to dry between watering’s is a good idea. As a result, it’s important to maintain the substrate moist without flooding it.

If you keep the plant in a bowl but keep the water out of the pot, you may maintain a certain degree of humidity. A bed of river stones, with the pot on top, is a nice solution. Then, without overcoming the stones, pour water into the bowl. The plant will be able to absorb moisture gradually in this manner, but if you want to water it thoroughly, pour water gently, moving the leaves away from the sides, or use the immersion watering method.

• Fill a bowl with water up to four fingers deep (better if it is collected from rain, bottled with weak mineralization or rested for a minimum of 24 hours if it is from the tap, to avoid excess lime).
• Drench the plant in water. The soil will be wet through the perforations in the pot, and the roots will be able to absorb the necessary water.
• Allow it to remain underwater for a time. If you’ve been watering it regularly, 10 minutes should plenty, but if it’s too dry, you can leave it for up to 30 minutes.
• Remove the pot from the basin and set it on a pot holder that will enable the water to drain. Place stones between the plate and the bottom of the pot if using a plate, as excess water must be able to escape. The excess water in the basin can be used to irrigate this or other plants in the future.

The roots can decay if there is too much water in the substrate. If the leaves of your Christmas poinsettia plant are blackish, this indicates that they are rotting due to insufficient hydration. If you wish to save it, prune the black sections, don’t water it again until you detect the very dry substrate, and put it in a sunny spot. If the soil is really wet, the plant will need to be transplanted into a new pot with new soil and not watered for several days.

How to Prune Poinsettia or the Christmas Plant

If we advise you how to care for your Christmas plant, don’t believe it’s just for the holidays. Consider pruning your Christmas plant, often known as a Poinsettia, to keep it healthy. It can be clipped to a height of 20 cm and treated as a green plant; it can even be planted outside when temperatures are mild; however, it should not be planted outside when temperatures fall below 12 degrees Celsius.

How to Transplant the Christmas Plant or Poinsettia

In some cases, it’s a good idea to replace the potted Christmas plant. Your plant will benefit from being transplanted into a larger container and having some compost added to its soil. In certain situations, the Poinsettia or Christmas plant should be transplanted:

• The flowerpot you bring with you when you buy it isn’t the best place to keep it because they’re normally sold in little pots to make transportation easier, among other things.
• If you find that the soil is excessively wet and the plant is already sick, you should take action.
• You can transplant it into a larger container in the spring to maintain it growing. This is especially important if you see that the roots have protruded below or even above the edge of the pot, raising the plant’s base above the pot’s edge.

How to Preserve the Christmas plant or Poinsettia

As you may have surmised from what has been mentioned so far, you must continue to care for the Christmas plant throughout the year, even though it appears to us that it has perished because all or nearly all of the leaves have fallen off. This can happen for a variety of reasons, including overwatering, but it can also happen because it is dormant and will bloom and develop again over time.

As a result, keep in mind that if you buy or are given a Christmas plant at the start of the season, you can maintain it for many years if you follow the maintenance instructions we’ve provided. Above important, remember these pointers for care after your Poinsettia after the holidays:

• It is beneficial to go outside during the summer, but not for long periods of time in direct sunlight, and it is especially vital not to be outside when the temperature is below 12 degrees Celsius.
• You can transplant it in the spring.
• Watering’s must be done on a regular basis and with a sufficient volume of water to avoid flooding.
• It is not recommended to moisten the leaves or blooms of this plant.
• When the Christmas season comes, for example in October or November, you can bring the plant indoors and set it in a dark room where its bracts will gradually turn crimson and stop growing. You can put it wherever you like in the midst of Christmas, but keep it away from direct heat or cold sources (do not place it or stick it to a radiator or a window).

Now you know everything there is to know about caring for a Poinsettia or Christmas plant, including how to keep it alive from year to year.