The poinsettia is uncomplicated: If you only follow a few basic rules, you can enjoy it for a long time. We tell you how you can do this – and what to look out for when caring for your poinsettia.
Do you want a poinsettia? Understandable, after all, “Euphorbia pulcherrima” (in German: “Das Schönste der Wolfsmilchgewächse”) is really beautiful to look at – and a real symbol of the pre-Christmas season and Christmas Eve to boot. Fortunately, buying and caring for a poinsettia is not too complicated. However, there are a few things you should be aware of.
Purchase and transport
This starts when you buy the poinsettia: take a good, thorough look at the plant – it should have green, strong foliage with no visible damage. The flowers are in the centre of the coloured bracts.
They are small and inconspicuous and should still be budded when you buy the plant. Only then will the plant still be in flower and you will be able to enjoy it for a long time.
If you have now found a suitable poinsettia and want to take it home, have it packed as well as possible – it should be very well protected from the cold and draughts on the way home.
This is because the plant is sensitive to cold and quickly suffers frost damage. You should protect it from this as much as possible.
The right location
As soon as you have arrived home with your poinsettia, it is important to find the right location for it. It feels most at home in a bright and warm place, but without direct sunlight – 15 to 22 degrees Celsius is ideal. It can grow and thrive best at these temperatures.
Equally important: it must not be exposed to draughts or cold.
Once you have found the right location for it, it does not need too much care. It should be watered sparingly anyway to avoid waterlogging – it makes sense to water it with a little room-warm water only when the top layer of soil is completely dry.
Too dry? Too wet?
Alternatively, you can take the poinsettia out of the pot and immerse it in a bowl of water for several minutes, then drain off the excess water. You can easily tell if you are watering it properly: If it is too wet, the poinsettia’s leaves will turn yellow and fall off. If, on the other hand, it is too dry, the leaves will simply droop.
With the right care, the poinsettia will remain beautiful until spring. If all the coloured bracts have fallen off at some point, you can continue to care for your poinsettia and thus bring it through the spring and summer, “over-summering” it so to speak.