Topic: Poinsettia - Not seeing red!!!!

[Renton]

I have a Poinsettia that's still growing nicely from last year's Christmas but all the leaves are green....they look lush and healthy but they're GREEN!

How do I turn my Poinsettia red????

I heard somewhere you have to shut it in the dark...is this true?

[djbrenton]

Yes, they need absolute dark for 14 hours a day. When I say absolute, apparently even the slightest chink of light stops them turning red. It takes about 8 weeks for the leaves to turn red. I usually put a cardboard box over one from 6pm to 8am from the beginning of November.

[valmarg]

You needed to start keeping the plant in the dark back in August/September if you wanted the bracts to be 'ready' for Christmas, so you are too late for this year.

If you continue to keep it going, I think you should find it will produce the bracts July-time.  Its worth it.  The 'achievement' of keeping the plant going, and getting the bracts back!  One of life's simple little pleasures, but it gives you such a sense of achievement.

Best of luck.

[laurieuk]

I know it is always said that you "must" use the darkness method to get good bracts but for many years when I was in service I had to do a large arrangement of poinsettias each christmas and had no way of making them dark but I found if i grew them in small pots so that they were really pot bound them formed bracts in time for Xmas. I had quite a collection of different shades of red and white.After they had finished I would let them go dry then cut them back hard, restart about July. They were grown in a faurly small greenhouse with just summer shading.