You Don’t Have To Kill The Poinsettia
Dear Mom:
Every year it’s the same with you and the poinsettias. Why do they have to die? Why? Growing up, I thought that poinsettias just died naturally after Christmas.
Of course, I thought that the same was true of all of the plants on the porch in the summer, that something just happened at the end of September and the plants all died naturally. I realized, oh, sometime in college, that no, the plants don’t just die at the end of summer. No, you can actually keep watering them and bring them into the house and voila! They live!
The same holds true for the summer vegetable garden. Tomato plants do produce tomatoes after August 1st, but for some reason, come August, you insist on terrorizing the vegetable plants and ripping them out of the garden, bagging them, and putting them on the curb for trash pick up. It doesn’t matter if there are cucumbers on the vine, baby eggplants still growing, or hundreds of green cherry tomatoes that just need a few days to turn red. It’s over. On August 1st, the garden is over.
Though I’ve watched you kill thousands of houseplants, vegetable plants, rose bushes, etc., nothing has bothered me as much as the poinsettias. It always seemed like such a waste that these beautiful plants were tossed along with the discarded gift wrap and ribbons on December 26, when you would inevitably take down all of the Christmas decorations.
It took me longer to catch on to the bullshit that you were doing with the poinsettias than it did with the other plants. Maybe I was caught up in the “magic” of Christmas and all that, who knows? I’m embarrassed to admit that I didn’t figure the poinsettia thing until a few years ago. But now I know this: poinsettias are not just a Christmas plant. And not only that, they are super easy to rebloom yearly. If you actually water them, they last a while (vs. never watering them, then tossing them on December 26th). In the spring, you slowly decrease the watering and put them in a cool place until June. In June, you cut the stems back, water and fertilize the plant, put it in sunlight and watch it grow throughout the summer, pinching the stems every so often. In October, limit the plant to 10 hours of daylight and by November you will have flower buds.
Soon to be dead.
A few years ago, I bought you beautiful, beautiful poinsettias that were as big as trees. I get teary when I think about how you killed them and put them to the curb for trash pick up. I now refuse to buy you poinsettias, but your grandson doesn’t know any better and picked out a lovely little poinsettia for you for Christmas this year. I know that it’s only still alive because Amir gave it to you. But I don’t doubt that it’s days are numbered. Look at it. You don’t have to kill it! Let it live, Mom! Let the little poinsettia live!!!
Love,
Nick
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