House & Home
From
giant succulents right the way through to the tiniest rock plants, euphorbias are a diverse and successful plant family.
Many of you will be familiar with varieties such as Euphorbia characias Wulfenii, a handsome architectural plant with bold cylindrical heads of lime green flowers that sit proudly on silvery green leaves.
This plant was greatly admired by horticulturist Gertrude Jekyll and is found widely in herbaceous borders today.
One of my personal favourites in this family is Euphorbia mellifera, the honey spurge, which forms a beautifully rounded shrub with elegant foliage and honeyscented flowers in spring. But perhaps the most successful of this tribe is Euphorbia pulcherrima, known to Christmas shoppers as poinsettia. This euphorbia is produced in its millions in preparation for the festive season, and thousands of them are now lining the tills at DIY shops, supermarkets and garden centres to be used for indoor Christmas decorations or gifts. Hailing from Mexico, this shrub was first discovered by the American ambassador to Mexico, Joseph Poinsett, after whom it is named. He was a keen amateur botanist and brought it back to the United States with him in 1828.
The rest, as they say, is history. The cheerful red foliage has come to epitomise Christmas on both sides of the Atlantic. Legend has it that a poor young Mexican girl had no gifts to bring to the altar at Christmas so she gave what she could – some plants from the roadside which miraculously sprouted red blooms.
The red blooms are actually leaves, called bracts, which are brightly coloured to attract pollinators. Breeders continue to work on new variations all the time, and today they are also available in cream and pink.
There are very particular light and dark requirements needed to produce the brightly-coloured bracts which growers now have down to a fine art.
It requires a certain amount of dedication to do this at home and that’s why many people will discard the poinsettia after the festive season.
The tricky bit is trying to get the foliage to colour up in time for Christmas. The plant needs to be in complete darkness for 14 hours a day for at least eight weeks for the leaves to turn red.
Start around next October to aim for red leaves for Christmas.
Use black polythene or put the plant somewhere that is in total darkness for 14 hours.
Then during the day bring the plant back out to daylight conditions. When the red bursts through, you’ll know it was worth it.