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Save Your Plant – Poinsettia
It used to be lush, vibrant red and in full bloom. It arrived wrapped in a lovely foil wrapper. But now the few leaves left are about to succumb to gravity, and more leaves are falling off. What can you do to restore it to it’s original goodness? Poinsettia (Euphorbia pulcherrima) Member of the spurge family Originally from Mexico Red ‘petals’ are actually modified leaves called bracts The flowers are the tiny, yellow centre If your poinsettia looks like this one [see photo], don’t give up on it yet. You may be able to restore it to its original form. Chances are that at this stage neglect has reduced your poinsettia to stems with few leaves and the plant has… More
Let’s Identify This Euphorbia
While in the Cuban countryside, we came upon a number of very old cemeteries that always sat right next to the ocean. I was told that one cemetery dated back to 1919. How they managed to survive the hurricanes when so many homes with much more distance from the ocean haven’t is beyond me. This particular type of euphorbia seemed to skirt the edges of all but one of them. That one was fenced by a much tougher euphorbia. This plant looks very similar to Poinsettia (Euphorbia pulcherrima) and I’ve been struggling to decide if it is or isn’t since our trip. Here’s a closer shot. My argument FOR identifying it as Poinsettia are: It gets very scraggly and vine-like… More
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.… More
Madagascar Jewel
I’m not sure exactly how it happened, but my interest in oddities from the Euphorbiaceae family seems to be growing. To be fair, it is an attractive family of plants with incredible diversity. Euphorbias can be succulents, trees, bushes, or herbaceous plants. From your seasonal poinsettias to colourful and spiny crown of thorns, and a few thousand utterly wacked out, alien-like plants in between, it’s a family that constantly takes me by surprise. More
