How Festive

It must have been the influence of that month in the Caribbean where they are as big as trees, because I haven’t craved a holiday poinsettia in ages. The last time I remember growing one was the year I published a piece on restoring a dormant poinsettia to its original glory. That must have been ten years ago now.

What surprised me more than my own rekindled interest was that Davin was into it, too. We chose and bought this one together, an impulse buy at the Loblaw when we went in to get some money from the machine for subway tokens. The path to the ATM takes you right through the garden section. They know how to get me.

We loved that this one seemed to be a mutt of every variety jammed into one plant. It’s got a bit of the deep mahogany type, a few white and pink blush leaves, and lots of speckles. Later, I found myself eyeing a dwarf variety for sale in a corner shop a little too closely.

Perhaps I will keep this one and bring it out of dormancy for next year. Perhaps not. When it comes to plants, I don’t know who I am or what I will do anymore. The Year of the Id is sliding into a second.

Gayla Trail
Gayla is a writer, photographer, and former graphic designer with a background in the Fine Arts, cultural criticism, and ecology. She is the author, photographer, and designer of best-selling books on gardening, cooking, and preserving.

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9 thoughts on “How Festive

  1. What a pretty plant!
    I’ve come to realize that I’m just not cut out to maintain this plant longer than the 6 week holiday season. I love the darn things with all my heart & try to follow the ‘caring for’ instructions, but it’s with a sigh in my heart that I just have to let them be a winter annual & bring in the new year with a more than half dead plant on my table.

  2. What a lovely one to bring home with you Rosie. I never saw one with so many colors of varieties of poinsettia’s wrapped up into one. Have a wonderful week.

  3. Michelle: Don’t sweat it. Bringing this out of dormancy can be a challenge. I stopped way back when in part because finding a place to keep it with such a small amount of space was impossible and not worth it.

  4. oh so beautiful.very colorful indeed! I would love to have something like this in my Garden as well. I just have a balcony and terrace to do gardening.. will it be ok for this plant?

  5. If you check my inventory, found not far from your island, it may/may not offer one way to approach your research abiut
    your grandmother gardening. It would help me also, since, as a serious collector, I keep distant memories about what our mothers/grandmothers kept inside the house or their outside gardens. I have written on the subject in my blogs.

    I bet that it was VERY similar, since people tastes, customs in plants depend on their micro climates, temperatures, average rain, altitude, relation to the ocean breeze, heat and drought resistance.

    Good luck in your projects.

  6. I remember when Dav was eighteen, our rooming house sported three Victorian fornt windows that had extreme sun all day long. My Christmas poinsettia was kept watered along with the Amaryllis flowers I hadbought. By July, the poinsettia was deep crimson, because I had closed the drapes at the right time- the plant needs timed light fixes and darkness fixes. Also my Amaryllises were kept in the pots and not even dried out upside down- they still produced ebulliently strong, rich blooms -and at the same time. The poinsettia had been 1 and a half feet high and it stretched to over four feet high in that environment.

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