How to Properly Care for Your Christmas Poinsettia Plants

Every Christmas a common thing that many people do is to purchase poinsettia plants. Poinsettia plants are very sensitive and are sometimes difficult to care for. In this article, we will discuss some important tips in caring for your Christmas poinsettia plants. Some things we will discuss are idea room temperatures for your plants, best locations to place your plants and ways to keep your poinsettia plants growing well past the holiday season.

Room temperature is very important in caring for your poinsettia plants. Christmas Poinsettia plants do best in room temperatures between 65° and 75°. It's best not to store your plants in rooms that maintain a temperature below 55°. Always try to avoid placing your poinsettia plants in very warm drafty areas and also very cold drafty areas. Poinsettia plants do not do well in high room temperatures, above 75°. If you have a room that stays fairly warm at night then try to move your plants to cooler room temperatures, but preferably not below 55°.

The best location to place your poinsettia plants, are near windows where the plant will get direct sunlight for a portion of the day. Remember, it's important that your plants are not near anything too hot or too cold. Keep your poinsettia plants away from hot fireplaces and heater vents. Also avoid letting the leaves on your plant touch cold windows etc. Make sure you check the soil on your poinsettia plants daily. If the soil is dry to the touch, then water your poinsettia plant. Make sure the plant pot is able to drain sufficiently. Not watering your plant sufficiently or not giving it direct sunlight at times, will cause the leaves to wilt and fall off resulting in the plant to losing its beautiful appearance.

If you would like to get your plants to grow past the holiday season, there are a few steps you will need to take. Sometime in January it would be best to cut your poinsettia plants back to half there normal size, then place them in a nice cool place. Eventually you will see new plant shoots appear on your plant and will need to re-plant in a bigger pot. As the year goes by and the weather gets much warmer, you can plant your poinsettia outdoors.

In order to keep your poinsettia plants healthy you must feed them plant food periodically. So as you can see, caring for your poinsettia plants is really not that difficult. Just make sure that you pay attention to the room temperatures where your plants are stored and also make sure they are in a good location for direct sunlight. If you decide not to throw your plants away in January but instead keep them, then just follow the items we discussed in this article and your Christmas poinsettia plants will last a long time.