Information about plants & gardens for Brisbane & Qld

Poinsettia

Euphorbia pulcherrima cultivars and hybrids

Family: Euphorbiaceae

These are familiar garden plants in South East Queensland, but are popular in other parts of the world as potted floral items, especially at Christmas. They normally flower during the short days of the Northern hemisphere winter. If you see poinsettias sold in flower at Christmas in Australia, they have been manipulated to flower at this time (our summer).

The poinsettia industry is huge in America, and you'll easily find information on the internet pertaining to greenhouse production of this crop. However, most SE Qld gardeners will grow them in the ground as easy shrubs which provide a splash of colour in the middle of our winter.

The "flowers" are in fact the coloured bracts which surround the real, insignificant flowers. The most common bract colour is red but breeding has produced a huge range of forms and colours from red through pinks to cream and white.

The potted flowering poinsettia produced for Christmas are usually dwarfed with hormones and will eventually grow large if planted out. A new group of poinsettia hybrids marketed under the Princettia® brand (www.princettia.net) are supposedly the first genetically dwarf poinsettias. They come in a range of pinks plus a white (at time of writing). Although they are produced primarily as a potted gift line and there isn't much feedback on their landscape performance yet, they could be tried outside in suitable climates.

In the garden, however large plants may be what are needed. The tall, upright growth (if not pruned again in the middle of the growing season) could suit a fairly narrow position. The foliage has something of a tropical look and if kept nourished and healthy could add to the landscape even when the plant is not in flower.

For the assurance of garden performance, try to source cuttings from old gardens (including the creams and apricot colours which are getting hard to find). The types sold in small pots might not be as well suited to open cultivation if they have been specifically bred as throwaway florist items.