Poinsettia Varieties for 2020
Festive Poinsettias: This Years Fun Varieties & Care Tips
The poinsettias have arrived! We’ve got some gorgeous varieties in the shop this year, and as is our tradition, Ron’s mom, Brigitte Pfister, is working hard to get all of them beautifully decorated for you. Our select poinsettias are wrapped with festive cellophane and ribbon, and then finished with a beautiful handmade bow thanks to Brigitte!
From 1983 to 1991, Brigitte was a co-owner of Mother Nature. In 1990, she started up Brigitte’s Flower Nook and shared her floral joy with the community until 1998. Now that she’s no longer working at the shop, she joins us every year and handmakes the beautiful ribbon bows on our poinsettias. Our poinsettias are very popular at this time of year, so she starts making them in the summer!
We’ve had a table set up in years past where Brigitte would wrap each poinsettia with fancy paper, ribbons, and bows while catching up with long-time customers and friends. This year she’s safely hidden away, but she’s still thrilled to be able to put her special touch on your Christmas poinsettia.
These beautifully-wrapped poinsettias are the perfect gift for friends, family, and neighbours. Here are a few of the different varieties you’ll find at Mother Nature!
Christmas Beauty Pink is a beautiful upright poinsettia with elegant pink bracts. The pink varies slightly from deep pink on young bracts to slightly paler pink on the older bracts. The lower leaves are a rich contrasting dark green. This is a perfect poinsettia for display in a large-scale centrepiece or on a side table. The pink is an elegant and cheerful variation from the classic red.
Polar Bear is a striking poinsettia with bright white bracts. The coloured bracts are slightly smaller than other varieties of poinsettia, but there are plenty of them. One of the fun features is that you can watch the bracts as they transition from green to white over time. A portion of the revenues from this variety of poinsettia, bred by Paul Ecke Poinsettia Ranch, go to the polar bear conservation fund.
Sonora Glitter is a unique poinsettia with variegated, or speckled, bracts. The coloured leaves have a deep red background with gorgeous white flecks across them, like a sprinkling of glitter. Some of the bracts show off larger chunks of white, making the plant even more eye-catching!
Christmas Wish is a classic bright-red poinsettia. This is a vigorously-growing poinsettia with tough, break-resistant stems, and the top is loaded with ultra-vibrant red bracts. The toughness of this type makes it an excellent choice for larger displays in high traffic areas. If you’re going for that classic rich red, this is the poinsettia for you.
Golden Glow was a new variety in 2019, and it quickly gained popularity for its beautiful yellow bracts. The yellow takes on a deeper golden hue as the bracts mature. The vibrant colour is in high contrast to the dark green, almost-black lower leaves. This unique poinsettia is a great way to spice up your holiday decor with joyful colour. Golden Glow is also a little more heat-tolerant than others, so you can display it near a fireplace if you’d like; just be sure to keep it well-watered.
How To Keep Your Poinsettia Happy
Poinsettias are a Christmas decor classic, but they’re very much a tropical plant, so our chilly winters aren’t quite their favourite. Here are some tips for keeping your poinsettia lush and thriving through the Christmas season:
- Buy it on your way home, on a warm day if possible. Poinsettias are quite fragile about temperature. If they are exposed to air that is 10ºC or colder, they’ll suffer for it. Don’t buy your poinsettia and leave it in the car while you do other shopping. Buy it when you’re on your way home so it’ll stay warm before it arrives.
- Wrap it up. Since they’re so temperature-sensitive, we recommend wrapping your poinsettia in cloth or paper before you take it out of the store to your car. If you have an extra reusable shopping bag or two, it doesn’t hurt to add those around the paper or foil wrapping as well; this will help trap more warm air inside. When you get home, keep it wrapped up until it’s several metres away from the door.
- Water it in the sink. The easiest way to water poinsettias is to lift them out of their wrapper and set them in a sink with a couple of inches of water for 30–45 minutes. Then, empty the sink and let the plant drain out excess water for another 15–20 minutes before putting it back in the decorative wrapping. You can tell they need water when the pot starts to feel light. Check if they need water every 2–3 days.
If you haven’t picked out your own poinsettia yet, or if you have some holiday shopping to do, stop by Mother Nature and browse our selection of plants, gifts, and decor!