Poinsettias coming out in ever more hues

Scoring more points for poinsettias. Each year, these plants become more popular and each year new varieties make it to the market. What was once an obscure, shrubby plant growing in Mexico is now widely recognized as the Christmas flower.

If you need another holiday to celebrate this Christmas season, throw in National Poinsettia Day. By act of Congress, Dec. 12 was set aside to honor Joel Robert Poinsett, the United States ambassador to Mexico who is credited with introducing the native Mexican plant to this country.

Poinsett saw this native plant growing on the hillsides of southern Mexico. The Aztecs prized these plants and considered the brilliant red colors to be symbols of purity. They used them to make a reddish-purple dye and also made a fever medicine from the latex sap of the plant.

From these obscure beginnings, the popularity of this plant has grown so it is not only the most popular Christmas plant, it is the No. 1 flowering potted plant in the United States, even though its traditional sales period is just six weeks long.

Each year plant breeders add new cultivars or varieties to the traditional favorites. "The flowers," as we call them, are really colored leaves or bracts of the plant while the true flowers are the tiny, yellow centers clustered in the center of these colored leaves.

While the original plants had small, thin, reddish-orange color bracts, plant breeders have developed a veritable plethora of colors ranging from white to purple as well as introducing numerous sizes and shapes to the plants.

I visited Highland Gardens in American Fork to see some of the poinsettias being grown for sale this year. I spoke with Mike Taylor, the retail manager, and asked him about what they were seeing as new trends in the plants this year.

"We are growing 10 different cultivars this year. Our selections include red, rosy pink, hot pink and white. Altogether, we are producing about 2,000 plants to sell to our customers."

While the greenhouses are full and colorful right now, the growing actually started several months ago.

Taylor explains, "Poinsettias don't naturally grow like this. They would usually grow very tall and upright. We trim back the branches two or three times per season to force them to spread out so they look better growing in a pot."

"It is fun to see them turn colors and how that changes the look of the greenhouse. We actually start growing them in August, and we buy the starts or cuttings and put them in a pot. We then keep them watered and fertilized so that they will be ready for sale around Thanksgiving."

Their 10 kinds make an impressive display but are only a fraction of the offering available through plant breeders. The National Poinsettia Trials are conducted each season in cooperation with five poinsettia breeders, one commercial greenhouse and two universities.

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