poinsettias

[ovaforty]

I re-vegged my x-mas poinsettia by putting her under 24 hours of floros after I pruned off the bloom bracts. I have one cutting so far and I am ready to take about 5 or more new cuttings. You can see in the pic that she is healthy and green. I will force her to bloom red again by giving her 12 hours total darkness and 12 hours light cycle.

[salth2o]

splain....re-vegged, etc. I have a Christmas poinsettia that is still doing good, but I can tell she is struggling and I would like to have it again next year.

[ovaforty]

Certain blooming plants have a vegetative cycle and a bloom cycle. With mums, daisies, kalanchoes, poinsettias, etc, the cycle depends on the amount light versus dark. When the sun goes into the autumn equinox, the days become shorter than the nights. This triggers these plants to bloom. Commercial greenhouses force these plants to bloom by manipulating the light cycles. They will use supplemental lighting at night to delay blooming and keep the plant in the vegetative stage. They will also force these plants to bloom by mainpulating the light cycle to 12 hours light and 12 hours darkness. This can be done in a greenhouse by the use of a black plastic that is rolled out every night at a certain time that covers the greenhouse in darkness. We can use a a closet or like in my case a box of some kind. The darkness must be total. No steet lights, etc. Uninterrupted 12 hours of darkness will force them to bloom.

With our x-mas poinsettias, the blooms will start to fade as the available light increases per day. You want to prune back the red bracs back to a leaf node, and give the plant 24 hours light cycle. you can repot it at this time also if you desire. I did not repot this time. I took a desk lamp and went to walmart and bought a "y" doubler socket. it screws into a single light socket and allows you to use 2 compact floros in the desk light. I use 2 25 watt daylight spectrum bulbs with a color temp of 6500 K from walmart or home depot. or you can use flourescent shop lights. It does not matter.
After you prune off the red bracs, the plant will begin to send out new shoots at the leaf nodes. feed the plant a diluted plant food. Peters 20-20-20 is ok at half strength. I use hydroponic nutes but you dont have to. Just give the poinsettias 18 hours to 24 hours of light from the floros at the daylight spectrum.
After a month you will see the new growth. poinsettia hate wet roots, so let them dry out slightly between watering. lift the pot to feel the weight. a wet pot will feel heavier than a dry pot.
If you want to take cuttings you can, after 2 months of growth or so. the new shoots will be large enough by then. if you want, i will do a tutorial on cuttings. I use a rooting hormone (Rootone, or Olivia's) which speeds up the rooting time by a week or so. a 3 inch cutting taken in june, july, and august will grow fast and become a nice size by the thanksgiving.
To force the plant to bloom, you must give 12 hours of light and 12 hours of total darkness. It takes at least 15 days of 12/12 light cycle to set the blooms. sept 1st is a good general time to begin the 12/12 cycle to get a good x-mas bloom. I use a 10 dollar digital timer from walmart to turn the lights on and off. I use 24 hours light then I swith to 18 hours light and 6 hours dark. I took an old nightstand that someone was throwing away. I installed a 2 ft T5 flourescent light strip with 2 bulbs that i bought at home depot for about 20 bucks. I used the wire nuts provided in the light strip kit to attach an appliance electric cord, that i also bought at home depot. The directions are included.
you can use any set up you want. Just give the plant 24 hours light until you are ready to bloom it. then give it 12 hours darkness uninterrupted.