Friday, March 7, 2014

Goodbye Poinsettia

Right after Christmas we talked about trying to keep poinsettia alive and thriving after the holidays.  I said that I had not had good luck with that in the past, but that I would give it a try, ... again.  And I did.  But as in the past, I failed.  We can't win at everything we try, so I am moving on.

The poinsettias were starting to look rather bedraggled before we left for Las Vegas.  I watered them thoroughly before we left thinking a good, thorough watering would sustain them while we were gone.  Didn't happen.


I arrived home to find two very unhappy and drooping poinsettias.


Just awful.  The poor things were just shot.  Maintaining poinsettias for another Christmas season is a time consuming task.  I did some research online and decided that it was not worth all the time it required.  One site gave the "15 Steps" to keep your poinsettia thriving until next Christmas.  Fifteen steps!!!  If all I had to do this year was maintain my poinsettias then I might print out this information and put it in a list and tape it up somewhere.  But this would be a pretty boring blog if all we spent time on for the next nine months was maintaining two poinsettias from last year.  They can be purchased for between $8 - $14 each when Christmas arrives.  So, we sent these poinsettias on to that great Christmas celebration in the sky and replaced them with two sago palms.


I love sago palms.  They bring an airy, ethereal feel to any inside space.  These fit perfectly in the planters on the entry table.  A little moss carefully tucked in around the pots for aesthetics and we had a beautiful new entry table.  Just be careful of sago palms around pets.  They are highly toxic if ingested.  I don't have to worry about Baxter eating them because he certainly would not be interested in any such thing.  Plus he is so low to the floor and these sit high up on this table.  But larger breeds may find these intriguing and start sniffing around and decide to take a bite just to see what it's all about.  You don't want that.

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