Broke my horticultural heart the other day to see a festive display of red amaryllis in full bloom, but with their bulbs tightly swaddled in a ball of thick wax. They looked great, but I feel their suffering. Like a hapless herd of stray kittens, I wanted to take them all home and give them a better shot at life.
Not trying to be the Garden Grinch during this cheery season of good will, but the harsh truth about most of the alluring holiday plants being sold is that most are doomed. Not here for the long haul. This year over 70 million potted poinsettias - and countless millions more flowering cacti, cyclamen, Norfolk Island pines, kalanchoes, paperwhite Narcissus, Amaryllis, and tight little rosemary topiaries tarted up with bows - will be bought. Sadly, precious few will make it past their first winter indoors, languishing in the low light and practically zero humidity.
And sorry to bust any bubbles, but those beautiful cold-climate blue spruce and golden firs decorated as living Christmas trees also suffer terribly indoors, and then usually die in our hot, humid summers. And tropical Norfolk pines inevitably outgrow the living room but will freeze outside.
By the way, I am not suggesting that horticultural crop producers, florist, garden center, and other purveyors of seasonal plants are cynical; they actually want you have success with their “babies” - but if you don’t, they hope you will still want to buy more next year.
Good news is that lots of folks have kept poinsettias, which are porch-shading trees in frost-free climates, going for years, and with some trickery get them to rebloom; ditto with holiday cacti which are often shared from cuttings for years and can rebloom every fall and sometimes spring. By the way, you can tell Thanksgiving from Christmas cacti easily - the former have pointy “crab claw” tips to their flattened leaf-like stems.
To get flowering cacti, kalanchoes, and poinsettias to flower on time for the holidays, starting in early fall greenhouse growers pull shade cloths over production benches late in the afternoon and remove them the next morning; once buds or leaves start to color up, the special long-night treatment can stop.
Home gardeners have to depend on naturally shorter days in the fall and hope their porch or indoor lights aren’t too bright or find a box (maybe with a big merry bow on top) that will fit over the plants every late afternoon. The manager of my local print shop has a poinsettia that flowers every year because all the lights are cut off in his office after work, so they get naturally longer nights.
Note: these plants don’t do well if elbowed into a closet for weeks - it is new growth that flowers, so it’s important that they be kept growing during the day, meaning hours of bright light and regular watering.
My favs are amaryllis and paperwhite narcissus, both of which can be planted in the garden to grow and flower for decades. Bulbs grown in just water or trussed in a thick wax ball quickly get all their reserve energy exhausted but can be planted in potting soil (remove the wax from the amaryllis), kept in a sunny window till the leaves fade, and set out in the spring.
We are all inspired by these holiday beauties. Though some folks treat them as disposable, like a bouquet of cut flowers to be recycled as compost for next spring’s tomatoes. But with a little luck or garden skill, a handful can become treasured heirlooms in the home or garden.
Felder Rushing is a Mississippi author, columnist, and host of the “Gestalt Gardener” on MPB Think Radio. Email gardening questions to rushingfelder@yahoo.com.
