When we were in the south of Spain a few years ago in February, the council had planted them all round a roundabout for Christmas and they were going the same way as mine was at home, in it's pot.
Me, my mother and her mother before her used to buy them every Christmas and tried all sorts to keep them. Grandma kept hers once to survive until the following Christmas in 1964. Then grandfather opened a window to clear the room of cigar smoke and he was blamed for that murder. The plant met it's end a month later.
I have come to assume that since there are loads of them around every year at a reasonable price that, they must be sturdy (for a tropical plant) but once they leave the artificial tropical environment of the growers, they are already doomed.
