Poinsettias Revisited

All the photos in this blog were taken (with permission) this morning at K&W Greenery in Janesville, WI. Check out their website at www.kwgreenery.com/ for more information on location, hours, neat plants and much more for sale. I met with Chris W. at K&W as he will be custom growing some fun tropicals for us next year. Upon entering the greenhouse, I was amazed by the variety of "enhanced" poinsettias available for purchase. Poinsettias have sure come a long way over the past decade! K&W has a national reputation for not only their poinsettia variety but the creativity involved. I believe Chris W. does most, if not all, of the enhancements. I wont even pretend to know how these are painted and enhanced with glitter and other materials. While they weren't lacking for traditional red, white and pink varieties, these painted poinsettias were quite eye catching and each was subtly different. I particularly like the "tie-dyed" or "watercolor" looks to some of them. Neat stuff.

The history of poinsettias is quite interesting and is easily found in reference books or on the internet. There are some stories that also explain how this plant is tied in to the Holiday season and New Year. The most common misconception is that they are poisonous to humans. Ohio State University did a study that indicated that a 50 lb. child could eat 500 bracts (the colorful, modified leaves that provide the color) and only have a stomach ache (who wouldn't?). Poinsettias (Euphorbia pulcherrima) are native to Central America and tropical Mexico. Joel Robert Poinsett was the first U.S. Ambassador to Mexico (appointed by Pres. Andrew Jackson) and first brought this plant back to the United States in 1825. Needless to say, this plant became very popular and over $300 million in poinsettias are currently purchased domestically each year. Poinsettias, while produced in all 50 states, come primarily from California and roughly 90% of those produced domestically are exported. You missed National Poinsettia Day on December 12th but can still celebrate with the purchase of this popular holiday plant. Research more information on the care of this plant to maximize the "duration of appeal" for your selection(s). One of the best references I ran across was from the University of Illinois (http://urbanext.illinois.edu/poinsettia/index.cfm).
Today was fairly quiet at the Horticulture Center. I worked on my normal rotation of seed ordering, presentation preparations, label research and some other duties. I have some new topics to develop for the Wisconsin Public Television Garden Expo (February 10,11,12) at the Exhibition Hall of the Alliant Energy Center in Madison, WI. RBG has had a booth for the past 14? years or so and will do so again. After the New Year, we'll be selling advance tickets to this event out of our gift shop. I've always enjoyed presenting at this event as I believe it exposes people to the gardens and I always include some sweet garden shots of RBG to get them hooked on visiting. My topics this year are "Eat Your Landscape", "Gardening Vertically" and "Annuals of Interest". I've always done a talk on new and exciting annuals at this event but of course it is different each year. Crowds for these lectures have varied in the past but the educational component of this event has become so popular that I've seen full rooms for most topics. The attendance of 20,000 last year was a record and our booth is in a nice location for exposure. K&W Greenery had a booth last year too. Attendees (and vendors) aren't just from Southern WI as we talk to people from central and Northern WI as well as IL, IA and MN.

Janice was in today to work on her vegetable collections research for 2012. We also saw Kris K., Bill O., Dr. Gredler and Dawn T. It rained pretty well today and while many would prefer snow, this extra moisture before the ground freezes can only help the garden, particularly our conifers. The weather still looks good for the start of the Holiday Lights Show this Friday, December 16th (4:30 pm - 8 pm). Maybe we'll get some white stuff soon enough to augment the HLS.