Holidays are over, but plants can bloom on
Poinsettia is the most popular holiday plant, and the good news is that modern poinsettia selections are much less sensitive to drying out than the older versions, but that is still the key to them having a long and attractive life.
If they receive adequate water and appropriate light and heat register flow, they can easily survive a full year in the house.
The plants on display in the house or office should be watered several times a week to the point where water emerges from the drain hole. When that is not practical because of the plant’s location, many gardeners rely on ice cubes placed in the container several times during the week.
Any water deficit from limiting watering to ice cubes can be made up once a week by soaking the plant in the sink. For more details on ice cube watering, review one of the write-ups on the process in plantanswers.com.
Other factors important to a long and attractive life for a poinsettia is to avoid placing the plant in a location subject to blasts of hot air from a heat register or sun from a western window. They are also sensitive to temperatures that approach freezing and winds.
Cyclamen
In past generations, cyclamen was an indoor plant, especially popular as a “get well” gift. Now most are used outside as winter color for shady garden beds and containers.
In that role, they sell for about $7 apiece, a huge bargain for such a spectacular plant. Unfortunately, they are very difficult to preserve outside and to use for reblooming next winter.
If you want to keep it alive indoors, transplant one of your favorite colored cyclamen from the garden or the 4-inch pot from the nursery into a 1-gallon pot and place one or more in front of an eastern-exposed window. If you do that, you can expect them to bloom for several years indoors. They are not xeriscape plants, so keep them well watered.
Paperwhites
A plant often given as a holiday gift in a forced bloom are paperwhites. I am not sure who likes the paperwhite fragrance, but the neat thing is that the bulbs can be planted in the landscape after they have finished their stint in the house.
Planted in partial or full sun they will rebloom every year in November or December to kick off the season’s year of landscape color. In addition to producing attractive blooms, paperwhites’ foliage and flowers are not eaten by the deer.
Cactus
It is hard to include Christmas cactus in our normal idea of cactus. They are lush plants with colorful flowers that require generous watering to prosper. They grow in the trees in tropical forests.
Treat your Christmas cactus much like the poinsettia in terms of watering, but reduce the watering after the plant blooms. In November, if you want the Christmas cactus to bloom again at Christmas, it needs to be subjected to 14 hours of dark every night in a closet or similar situation. As you might expect, most never bloom again.