No matter the color, how to help your Christmas plants look their best
Greg Gayton of Green Acres Nursery & Supply holds the I Love You Pink poinsettia, one of the newest (and popular) hybrid holiday plants. Courtesy Green Acres Nursery and Supply
From florists to nurseries to supermarkets, hybrid poinsettias are everywhere, packing plenty of wow into their colorful bracts.
And those poinsettias are flying off the plant stands. Greg Gayton, garden guru at Green Acres Nursery & Supply, reports that they were nearly sold out this week, despite growing thousands of popular plants.
Green Acres’ poinsettias are locally grown, and that helps them adapt to Sacramento homes and gardens. When Green Acres purchased Eisley’s Nursery in Auburn, it also took over Eisley’s vast plant propagation operation. Over the decades, Eisley’s has grown millions of poinsettias for local buyers.
Particularly popular this season: Bright pink poinsettias. Among the varieties that Gayton likes are Pretty Polly (an eye-popping magenta) and I Love You Pink.
Poinsettias also come in yellow, gold, white, variegated and of course red in a wide range of bract shapes such as curly, skinny and extra wide. The bracts are what most people think of as petals.
The key to selecting a fresh poinsettia that will last until New Year’s is focusing on what’s at that center of those bracts – the small yellow true flowers or cyathia. They should look fresh and not turning brown. Any poinsettias missing those little yellow flowers are past their prime.
The bracts should appear fresh, too, but also notice the dark green leaves lower on the stem. Make sure the foliage looks healthy and not drooping or falling off.
According to experts, the most common problem with poinsettias is overwatering. People kill them with kindness. Take off the foil wrapper or punch holes in the bottom (and place a saucer underneath). Poinsettias – semi-tropical members of the Euphorbia family – demand good drainage and prefer soil on the dry side of moist. Give the plant a drink once a week (or as needed) and don’t let the poinsettia stand in water. The best way to know if your poinsettia needs watering? Pick it up. If it seems light, it’s time to water.
Cold kills poinsettias; they can’t take prolonged temperatures under 50 degrees. So, if decorating with poinsettias outdoors, bring them inside or protect them at night. They prefer bright light and temperatures between 65 and 70 degrees (just like most people do).
Contrary to popular belief, poinsettias are not poisonous – to people, dogs or cats. Studies at Ohio State and Washington State universities debunked myths about poinsettia toxicity. A 50-pound child would need to eat more than 500 poinsettia bracts to reach a toxic level.
That doesn’t mean poinsettias are edible. Their milky sap will cause mouth and skin irritation (and keep any person or animal from munching them).
For more on poinsettia care: https://ucanr.edu/sites/urbanhort/files/80155.pdf
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Garden Checklist for week of Jan. 12
Once the winds die down, it’s good winter gardening weather with plenty to do:
* Prune, prune, prune. Now is the time to cut back most deciduous trees and shrubs. The exceptions are spring-flowering shrubs such as lilacs.
* Now is the time to prune fruit trees. (The exceptions are apricot and cherry trees, which are susceptible to a fungus that causes dieback. Save them until summer.) Clean up leaves and debris around the trees to prevent the spread of disease.
* Prune roses, even if they’re still trying to bloom. Strip off any remaining leaves, so the bush will be able to put out new growth in early spring.
* Clean up leaves and debris around your newly pruned roses and shrubs. Put down fresh mulch or bark to keep roots cozy.
* After the wind stops, apply horticultural oil to fruit trees to control scale, mites and aphids. Oils need 24 hours of dry weather after application to be effective.
* This is also the time to spray a copper-based fungicide to peach and nectarine trees to fight leaf curl. (The safest effective fungicides available for backyard trees are copper soap -- aka copper octanoate -- or copper ammonium, a fixed copper fungicide. Apply either of these copper products with 1% horticultural oil to increase effectiveness.)
* When forced bulbs sprout, move them to a cool, bright window. Give them a quarter turn each day so the stems will grow straight.
* Browse through seed catalogs and start making plans for spring and summer.
* Divide daylilies, Shasta daisies and other perennials.
* Cut back and divide chrysanthemums.
* Plant bare-root roses, trees and shrubs.
* Transplant pansies, violas, calendulas, English daisies, snapdragons and fairy primroses.
* In the vegetable garden, plant fava beans, head lettuce, mustard, onion sets, radicchio and radishes.
* Plant bare-root asparagus and root divisions of rhubarb.
* In the bulb department, plant callas, anemones, ranunculus and gladioli for bloom from late spring into summer.
* Plant blooming azaleas, camellias and rhododendrons. If you’re shopping for these beautiful landscape plants, you can now find them in full flower at local nurseries.
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