Pampered poinsettias yield colorful variety

 
Photos by Shelly Hanks, WSU Photo Services
 
 
Sale Friday, Dec. 9
 
WSU’s Horticulture Club will hold the second and last day of its poinsettia sale 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Friday, Dec. 9, in the greenhouse across the street from Ferdinand’s Ice Cream Shoppe. Each potted plant costs $11. Varieties: Prestige Red, Prestige Maroon, Freedom Pink, Snowcap and Jingle Bell.
PULLMAN, Wash. – As Washington State University’s Horticulture Club gears up for day two of its annual poinsettia sale, the greenhouse near Ferdinand’s Ice Cream Shoppe is splashed with jewel-like colors. These aren’t your grandmother’s poinsettias. Unlike the standard red ones associated with holiday table centerpieces, you’ll find a swirl of colors ranging from grape to creamy white.
 
And if you treat them right, they’ll live longer and display more vibrantly than those found in most stores, said club advisor Jamie Holden. From the time students plant the rooted cuttings in warm, rich soil in August to just before customers carry the fully flowered plants out the door in December, “These poinsettias get plenty of pampering,” he said. “Combined with the light and temperature controls in the greenhouse, and the care and watering by horticulture club members, they mature into sturdy plants.”
 
Good thing, too, because the poinsettia typically leads a charmed but short life. A tropical plant that came to this country by way of Mexico, it doesn’t like cold temperatures, said Holden. After blooming in a climate-controlled greenhouse on campus, the plants were transported by heated van to another greenhouse to be sold. When a customer picks one, the pot gets wrapped in colored foil and the entire plant is cocooned in brown paper.
 
“If the plant is exposed to cold air, just taking it from the building to the car can cause temperature stress. If it gets stressed, it will respond by dropping its leaves,” he said.
 
Limiting light for brilliant color
 
WSU Horticulture Club member Andy Thew helped plant
the poinsettia cuttings in August. “Then I pampered them,”
he said.
In Mexico, poinsettias bloom naturally in the hills and along roadsides during the darkest months where weather remains warm. Here on the Palouse, to get them at their peak by the holidays, students in autumn must limit their light exposure by covering the plants with block-out cloth.
 
Planting varieties called Prestige Maroon, Snowcap and Jingle Bell at the beginning of the school year, and then selling them at semester’s end, makes for a good club project, said Andy Thew, a junior in communications who’s minoring in horticulture.
 
“I was intrigued by the whole process of growing a warm weather plant that needs darkness to bloom,” he said. “Also, just the fact that we have all these varieties,” he said, holding up a scarlet poinsettia speckled in white called “Jingle Bell.”
 
Diplomat’s discovery a holiday hit
The poinsettia is the best selling flowering potted plant in the country, according to the 2012 Farmers’ Almanac, with customers purchasing most of them during the single month between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
 
All this because of a discovery made by an American diplomat in Mexico 186 years ago. Joel Poinsett, who happened to be a horticultural geek, dug up some poinsettias in the Mexican countryside and shipped them to his home in South Carolina, according to literature on the late U.S. ambassador. The plant with its showy red bracts became so admired throughout the country that Congress established the date Poinsett died – Dec. 12 – as National Poinsettia Day.
 
All these years later, Poinsett’s discovery benefits WSU’s horticulture club members, offering them a final exam that’s alive.
 
“It’s a great way for them to learn the science of growing a tropical plant that craves darkness but only during certain times,” said Holden. Additionally, students receive scholarships from money made off the sales, he said.
Enough heat and not too much water
 
Brian Bodah, a Ph.D. student in biological systems engineering, stood proudly at the counter during day one of the club’s poinsettia sale. The first customer walked out the door carrying a “Jingle Bell” swaddled in paper to keep it warm.
 
Bodah’s wife is from Brazil, where poinsettias grow up to eight feet in the wild, he said.
“They’re a lot smaller here but still a favorite in my family,” he said, adding that they have a still-healthy poinsettia from last year’s sale. The secret to keeping the winter bloomer year-round was not to let it get cold, not to overwater, and to place it outside in the summer, he said. Even so, it won’t work for all poinsettias.
 
“I love plants and I love to play in the dirt,” Bodah said. “My feeling is, if it still looks good, why throw it away?”