PITY THE POOR POINSETTIA

    I can think of only one plant that is loved one month then trashed the next. 




  That's the sad life of the poinsettia.
 

  
    Every January they go out with the Christmas trees  

but the trees are dead. 

The red-leafed wonders are still very much alive, anxious to please.  

They can last for years if you just add water.
     
   Francesca and I rescue them from trash piles and they are oh, so grateful. They show it by perking up and slowly preparing for next holiday season.

     Poinsettias are bright and cheap.  Every fall growers gas their crop to make more of the green leaves turn red.  

We don't.  We prefer to let them go through their color-changing cycle naturally.  By early December,  they've still got lipstick-red smiles but there are less of them. The look is more restrained and elegant, 
a geisha by our door.
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