5 Things to Do as Soon as You Bring Home Your New Poinsettia

Poinsettias are close relatives of other plants in the Euphorbia genus, including spurges, snow-on-the-mountain, and crown of thorns. They grow woody stems with liquidy white sap that leaks out from wounds. As days shorten and nights lengthen, they sprout red leafy bracts below small yellow flower clusters. This showy bloom display is a major reason the shrub is a holiday favorite.

Although popular indoors, poinsettias are gorgeous garden specimens outdoors in warm regions from USDA hardiness zones 9 through 11. If you’re buying this plant for outdoor growing, simply transplant it outside during mild weather from fall through spring. It appreciates full sun in most regions, although it benefits from afternoon shade in the hottest parts of zone 11.

If you choose to grow poinsettias as houseplants, you’ll want to adapt your home to match the conditions of their native range. Poinsettias originate from parts of Mexico, where they receive cool winter temperatures and warm, sunny days. Let’s learn what they need to thrive so we can adapt your home to match what they like! 

5 Things to Do After You Bring Home Your Poinsettia

If your potted poinsettia is sitting on your table, it’s time to look at it and determine what it needs! Most poinsettias at retailers undergo treatment so they last throughout the holidays. Use these five tips to further help your new houseplant adapt and thrive in your home. 

Wait to Give It A New Home

It’s best to wait to repot your poinsettia after bringing it home, as these shrubs prefer sunny conditions to perform well. Wintertime inside American homes is often dark and cold—days shorten, temperatures drop, and frost arrives. Poinsettias can adapt and overcome these challenges. However, repotting your plant could shock it while it’s adapting and lead to premature leaf drop.

Although you shouldn’t repot your plant during winter, who’s to say you can’t give it a new decorative container? This is an easy way to turn a generic poinsettia into an ornamental plant perfect for your holiday decor. Simply remove the red or green foil from the nursery container, then place the plastic pot inside a ceramic or terra cotta container.

As spring warmth arrives you can start thinking about fully transplanting your poinsettia to its final location. Whether you want it outdoors, in a larger container, or inside a planter bed, you’ll want to wait to transplant it until after the danger of frost passes in late spring and early summer. 

Place It Near A Sunny Window

After bringing your poinsettia home, find the perfect location for it to thrive. Because poinsettias prefer full sun or partial shade outdoors, they do best in similarly well-lit sites indoors. A sunny window is best where they’ll receive between two and eight hours of bright light daily. Bright indirect sunlight is ideal indoors, while partial shade or full sun is ideal outdoors.

Avoid dark rooms where species like spider plants, snake plants, and pothos thrive. This Euphorbia species needs light to continue blooming! It’ll begin losing leaves in the dark, and its flowers and foliage will turn yellow or brown before falling off. If your home is dark in most rooms, consider adding grow lights to boost poinsettia growth. 

Too much light after an abrupt transition can also create problems. Move your houseplant into bright light slowly, especially if you found it in a dark supermarket before you brought it home. Take a week to transition it, placing it under a few hours of indirect light during the day. After a week, it should be ready to stay in a sunny spot near a window. 

Avoid Temperature Swings

Don’t shock your poinsettia right after you bring it home! The perfect location is one away from hot or cold drafts. Poinsettias prefer temperatures above 60°F (16°C). They’ll survive short cold spells during the dormant season, although they’ll lose their leaves to remain hardy.

Avoiding temperature swings allows your houseplant to stay evergreen. Poinsettias are deciduous, semi-evergreen, or evergreen, depending on their treatment and growing environment. Most shrubs lose their leaves indoors if they sense cool temperatures and low light, while outdoor specimens in warm climates retain them year-round. 

Whether you open a window with cold air every day or have a heater on all winter, you’ll want to avoid placing your poinsettia near these drafty sites. A cool but sunny location with average airflow tricks your plant into thinking it’s growing in its native range, helping it sprout healthy new buds, leaves, and blossoms. 

Keep Soil Moist, Not Soggy

All plants need water to thrive, although how much water they need depends on their growing habits and where they originate from. Poinsettia shrubs need an average amount of water throughout their lifetime. They like moist but not soggy soil that dries out between waterings. Avoid letting your specimen sit in standing water that drains into the pot saucer.

It may seem difficult, but it’s important to water your poinsettias as often as they need and not too much. An easy trick to know when to water is the finger test. Simply stab your finger into the soil, see if you sense moisture below the surface, and water accordingly. If it’s dry, add plenty of moisture, and wait to water for a few days if it’s still wet. 

Another method for testing the moisture levels is lifting the plant to see how heavy it is. Heavy plants have lots of water in the soil, while light ones have little moisture. You want to let your poinsettia dry between waterings, but you don’t want it to get bone dry. Attain a consistent culture for best-growing results. 

Wait For Leaf Drop

Although poinsettias are evergreen or semi-evergreen in their native range, they’re often deciduous after you bring them inside your home. They struggle to hold onto their foliage after the holidays unless they have ample sunlight and warm temperatures. 

If leaves do drop, do not fear! Your plant uses this normal response after it blooms to conserve energy during the winter. The leaves and colorful flower bracts may turn yellow or brown, wilt, and fall off completely. This is a signal to cut back on watering and give your shrub a cool location for the rest of its dormant period. Continue using the finger test to avoid overwatering your dormant poinsettia. 

Use pruners to cut the stems back to two or three buds after all the leaves drop. This helps the shrub enter dormancy and encourages bushy growth next season. Then, leave it in a cool, dark location for the rest of the winter until the danger of frost passes. Once there are no more frosty nights it’s safe to place your houseplant outdoors for the summer or indoors in a site with full sun. 

Bonus Tip: Force Blooms Next Year

After you bring home a poinsettia and it grows for the year, you may wonder how to force it to flower again in time for the holidays. Wonder no more, as some simple strategies help it bloom reliably year after year. Poinsettias bloom according to day lengths in their habitat, meaning they grow leaves when days are long and flowers when they’re short.

Trick your plant into flowering by granting it 14 hours of darkness every night starting in early October. Then, take the plant out of the dark so it receives 10 or less hours of daylight. Repeat this daily process for ten weeks. Your shrub will sprout flower buds as Thanksgiving passes and have full blooms as Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa arrive. 

Fertilizer is another important tool for healthy flowers. Add a half dose of organic fertilizer once a month during the growing season for ample blooms and leaves. Start fertilizing in spring as new growth appears, then stop applying it in late summer as you prepare your shrub for holiday blooming.