Christmas flower power

The lovely poinsettia in very popular around Christmas time.

Free Times gardening columnist BEATRICE HAWKINS gets into the festive spirit this week and also shares some trivia…

THE birthday flower for December is the beautiful poinsettia that is for sale everywhere at present as a Christmas flower.
Once again it is obvious that these flowers are decided in the Northern Hemisphere as the poinsettia does not flower naturally here at this time.
It is a winter flowering, tropical shrub and to have them flowering for us to buy at this time of the year requires a great deal of manipulation.
Poinsettias originate in Mexico and are named after Joel Poinsett, the first American ambassador to Mexico who brought them back in 1828 to his plantation at Greenville, South Carolina.
He grew them there and gave them as presents to his friends at Christmas time.
After his death on 12 December 1851, this day was named Poinsettia Day in his honour and is celebrated each year in the USA.
The Aztecs revered the flowers as a symbol of purity.
The flowers on a poinsettia are actually quite insignificant, small, cream or white and in the centre of the red leaves that we admire.
The colour of these leaves depends on a process called “photoperiodism” meaning the amount of light they receive.
They are triggered to flower by periods of darkness. To produce the brilliant red, they require at least 12 hours of complete darkness each day for about eight weeks as well as a temperature around 15 degrees centigrade so they are placed in completely dark, refrigerated rooms.
Even a little light during this 12-hour period will upset the process so growers don’t open the door to take a peak.
During the day they must have at least six hours of bright light and a temperature between 16-21 degrees.
To intensify the red, drop the night time temperature to 10 degrees but any lower will cause the leaves to fall.
As you can appreciate they are a very labour intensive crop to grow, however they are the largest flowering plant crop grown in the US with over 63 million grown for sale in pots each year. I couldn’t find a similar statistic for Australia.
In 1925, the poinsettia was chosen as the floral emblem for Brisbane and will grow happily on the coast of Queensland and on coastal NSW at least as far south as Coffs Harbour and further if frost-free.
On the Horticultural Society’s trip to Maleny during June many gardens had them flowering well, but unless you have an extremely well-protected area they are not recommended for our area as they are very frost tender.
I have been guilty of buying them at this time of the year for use as table centres.
Another plant I purchased one year was a “strawberries and cream” hydrangea but I prefer any number of our beautiful red flowering natives that are out now.
As a child I used to pick bunches of the red and gold Christmas bells that abounded in the area.
My Dad used to tell me of the crates of Christmas bells that were harvested during the second world war and sent by train from the area around Williamtown (Newcastle) aerodrome and sold at the flower markets and on street corners in Sydney.
Also the NSW Christmas bush was another favourite with its bright red flowers.
Plenty of bottlebrush are still flowering now and make a lovely table arrangement. Even red gum tips are for me preferable to following another commercialised American custom.
A helpful piece of garden trivia at this time is that fruit flies are short sighted! So if you cover your plants, trees or shrubs with any white netting they see this as flowers and don’t attack the plant.
Even large white mesh will work and will also deter birds and fruit bats from decimating your crops.
Hopefully, by the time you read this, the extreme heat will have gone and we will have had some more rain to revive the garden.
However it is summer and we must expect hot weather, so at this time of the year mulching is very important as it keeps the ground cool and helps reduce the amount of water needed.
Light coloured mulch such as lucerne, pea straw or lupin hay will add nitrogen to your soil and reflect light so reducing the soil temperature by up to 30 per cent as opposed to black or coloured mulch.
I am always amazed at the effect on the garden of even a minimal fall of rain.
No amount of watering seems to have the same result.
Driving around town recently I noticed a really beautiful tree in full flower in front of the Uniting Church in Guy Street.
I have found that it is a Cape Chestnut and native to South Africa.
It is a really spectacular sight with a canopy of large sprays of pink flowers that are even more beautiful up close. Well worth stopping to have a look.
Got a gardening question? Email Beatrice at hawkins.beatrice@yahoo