There are many symbols of this holiday season. The candle, the evergreen tree, the wreath, the Yule log, the robin, the dove, the minora, the manger scene, the jolly old man who brings toys, etc. As a gardener, one of my favorite symbols of this time of year is the poinsettia. Why is the Poinsettia a holiday tradition? It’s quite a story! Check out this blog post on: Poinsettia History: How a Mexican Flower Became a Symbol of the Holiday Season

In the spirit of the holidays, it will come as no surprise that we will often purchase a poinsettia. Poinsettias are everywhere during the holiday season: grocery stores, home improvement stores, general stores, basically anywhere holiday commercialism is at its highest. No matter what you celebrate during this time of the year, it’s hard to deny it’s become over-commercialized. Even if you don’t celebrate anything at all, I’m sure you’ve noticed.

As that Holiday Season Began …

Back in 2015, my husband and I went to the nearest home improvement store to purchase a new faux evergreen tree for our home. Our previous tree had met with a rather unfortunate demise when its built-in lights failed to work. It was time to replace it. We decided to brave the hype of the commercialized gala that had been ongoing since before Halloween. Once there, we carefully selected a large and serviceable tree.

It was not the only demise we were recovering from that holiday season. We’d had poinsettias in the winter of 2014 that had all died due to the cold weather that winter. Some readers in the U.S. may remember the bomb cyclone of 2014. Well, it was so cold that it created a spider fracture in our front window. It also killed a lot of our indoor plants that holiday. Poinsettias are, after all, a plant from Mexico. 

Acquiring a Poinsettia for the Holiday

Thus it was in 2015 that we were inside the home improvement store. There, we spotted a display of beautiful red and green poinsettias. They were lovely! So bright and ornamental! 

Even knowing how ephemeral the poinsettia was likely to be, I simply had to have it. Like a child wanting a new pet, I vehemently declared that this time, I would take proper care of it! We carefully picked one we liked best. Gingerly, we took the holiday poinsettia from its racked display next to its brethren. We folded down the child seat of the shopping trolley. And we placed it in its location of honor for the ride through the checkout. 

At the checkout line, I gently lifted it up and made sure to keep it level while my husband scanned the barcode at the bottom of the pot.  Then, I set it back into the shopping cart’s child’s seat, equally gently. It being winter in the Northern hemisphere, it was icy outside, and the air was cold. I feared for my poor, new poinsettia plant even in the short distance from the store to my husband’s red Chrysler Town and Country.

I recalled that putting plastic over plants can help save them from minor frost. So I grabbed a plastic shopping bag from the checkout line. I then spread it over the top of the poinsettia until it was covered like a plant in an Autumn garden.  Thus it travelled across the parking lot, into the van, and the entire eight-mile journey back to our home.

Our New Poinsettia’s Home for the Holidays

Setting it on its place of honor in the center of our dining room table, I admired it’s beauty.  My husband and I watered it diligently about every other day. I’d water it in the morning before I left for work. If I’d forgotten, my husband would water it when he watered the plants in the evenings when he got home. We have always been good communicators. So it was no trouble for us to figure out how often we should be watering it.

Even so, I would occasionally find a puddle of water underneath the poinsettia. Odd.  Perhaps we were overwatering it after all? I mopped up the puddle of water. Then I placed a plastic plate beneath the pot to catch any other water that might seep through. The dining room table was only not damaged because it was made of glass.

A Holiday Discovery

One Saturday, as I was making us both coffee, my husband was making the rounds of all the plants, making sure to water them, including the poinsettia. From the dining room, his soft laughter floated to where I was in the kitchen. I was curious, but also busy. “Honey?” my husband called.

“Yes?” I answered, still focused on my task of making coffee.

My husband re-entered the kitchen with the pitcher of water in his hand, his expression one of sparkling-eyed amusement. “You know that poinsettia plant we got a few weeks back?” he asked.

“Yeah?” I answered, confusion writing itself all over my face. Was there something wrong?  Was it okay? The holiday poinsettia had looked fine the last time I had paid close attention to it.

A beat passed. Then he spoke. “Did you know that it’s plastic?”

I stood there in an incomprehensive stupor for a moment. “What?”  Was this another of his impish jokes? My husband’s humor is dry, but pranks like, ‘Look! Your shoelaces are untied!’ weren’t quite his style.

Analyzing the Evidence

“Come with me,” he said as he turned and left the kitchen, still holding the pitcher of water in his hands. I followed, more out of curiosity than anything, reluctantly leaving the coffees I was still in the process of making. At the glass dining room table, my husband put down the pitcher of water next to the holiday poinsettia. He folded down the green colored foil that had been wrapped around the poinsettia’s pot. At the base of the poinsettia stems wasn’t soil but Styrofoam.

“Surely that’s just there to keep the soil moist, right?” I asked. I was still unwilling to believe that I had been taken in by a plastic plant. After all, I had been largely raised on a farm and indoor gardening for the past several years! I recalled all the plants I’d seen in the flower shops with their Styrofoam molds that helped keep the cut flowers in the proper shape. Surely that’s all this was, right?

A Poinsettia Holiday Revelation

I leaned forward, over the holiday poinsettia, taking one of the bright red bracts between my fingers and took a close look of the leaves too. Even an inch from my eyes, I still saw the normal branching of veins and leaves. I turned the leaf this way and that, trying to get it to catch the light differently …. And that’s when I saw the warp and weave of what could only be a high-end silk fabric. 

“Oh. My. Gosh,” I said, still almost unable to believe it. This poinsettia, this plant which my husband and I had taken such care with and had so diligently watered, was PLASTIC! I burst into laughter, and my husband echoed my mirth. “So, THAT’S why I found a puddle of water underneath it the other day!”

“I kept finding water under it too, but I didn’t think anything of it,” admitted my husband.

“Why didn’t you say anything?!” I asked him, my arms spread wide in exasperation, but still laughing.

‘It didn’t seem important,” he answered. “The plant seemed to be doing fine.” 

“Well, CLEARLY!” I said, bursting into laughter again. 

An Eastborn Holiday Tradition: The Poinsettia, Planty the Watered Plant

We have retained the plastic poinsettia for all these years. Every time we pull it out of storage with the rest of the holiday decorations, we both burst in to giggles. How carefully we’d cared for this plant that had turned out to be plastic!

It has since been named “Planty the Watered Plant.” The moniker is an homage to an episode of Phineas and Ferb. If you know, you know.

We later recounted this story to my husband’s oldest son who laughed so hard during dinner that he was completely unable to eat. This story has become a favorite holiday tale for my family. And I hope you will also enjoy the tale. It just goes to show you that things are not always what they seem … and that’s ok, too!

From Eastborn Gardens, a very happy holiday to you and yours!