Can Poinsettias Last a Year?
or
I Don't Want to Kill Them, I Want Them to Go Away
Our flower fairy brought home two large dumpster-bound poinsettias as a 'gift' to me. (I know the pre-Christmas retail from-the-fairy's-place-of-employment price must have been enormous so I must be impressed.) The demise of the modest poinsettia in the living room was meticulously coincidental with the Feast of the Epiphany. (mental note: reinforce meaning of epiphany in boys' lessons. Just so they don't think it means "Mom carries dead poinsettia to garbage.") Bridget put them in front of the fire place where they looked festive, though dated. They blocked the draft which was invading the family room despite the closed flue. And if the draft killed them, tant pis. Frances rushed in later, shrieking that they were the most toxic decorative plant when one has animals......and moved them to the mantle. I'm wondering if there is a safe place where I can keep them growing for a year, where I won't have to look at them, and the pup won't eat them. We have the Mardi Gras decorations up on the porch and these orphan plants are sitting there screaming Christmas...........Christmas past. Perhaps I should take them to my mother-in-law, a veritable Orphans of the Storm of the plant world. (She took my Christmas Cactus into 'protective custody' one year.......)