Poinsettia substitute for indoor use

About 70 percent of all Poinsettias sold in Philippines are used as indoor decoration.

Bringing these Christmas Season icons indoors pose a problem of maintenance.

The plants are used to high light intensity.

Placing them in dark location ( insufficient lighting) makes them shed their leaves from bottom upwards.

The air-conditioning does not help either. It tends to dry up the plant faster which makes it need more frequent watering on the display itself.

Most commercial displays need to be replaced by another batch of fresh pot poinsettias before Christmas.

Some innovative gardeners started using other plants that can better tolerate the drying and the lowlight indoor conditions with the same bright colors of red green and white (colors of Christmas).

The most effective ones are the colored Aglaonemas.

The Aglaonemas can stay three to four months indoor under lowlight intensity and relatively dry air conditions while maintaining their bright colors.

With the number of color selections, there are plenty of varieties to choose from.

A few commercial plant growers are now focusing on volume production of colorforms that may be marketed during Christmas Season.