2) Continue to water the Poinsettia regularly, and fertilize with a balanced all-purpose fertilizer. Your Poinsettia will produce vigorous new growth by the end of May.
3) Transplant your Poinsettia into a larger pot. Continue watering regularly, and fertilizing every two to three weeks. (You can put the Poinsettia outside once the temperature is warm enough. Night temperatures need to average above 55° F, and if there's any chance the temperature will fall below 50° F, you'll need to bring the plant back inside.)
4) If necessary, prune the Poinsettia by September 1 to keep it bushy and compact.
5) Bring your Poinsettia inside October 1. For the next eight to ten weeks, you need to rigorously control the amount of light the plant receives. Each night, the Poinsettia needs to be kept in complete darkness for 14 continuous hours. The best way of doing this is covering the plant with a black plastic bag or a large box, and place it in an unused room. (The plant needs night temperatures of between 60 - 70° F.) I've heard of some people putting their Poinsettias into their closets for the night, but mine have never been big enough.
Each day, uncover your Poinsettia and place it in a well-lit spot. The Poinsettia needs 6 to 8 hours of bright sunlight daily.
Remember, complete darkness is essential. Any stray light that reaches your Poinsettia, such as that of a lamp or streetlight, can delay the reflowering process. It's also important that you make sure the Poinsettia gets the temperatures it needs; Poinsettias do not tolerate cold well, and temperatures outside the range it needs to flower can retard flowering.
If you follow these steps faithfully, your Poinsettia will flower again in time for the next Christmas holiday season. So why throw a perfectly good plant into the trash? With your TLC, you'll have one less item on your Christmas to-do list next year, and a gorgeous healthy plant to celebrate the season.
By the way, Poinsettias are not poisonous! The Society of American Florists wants you to know that no other consumer plant has been as extensively tested as the Poinsettia, and they're not toxic. In fact, "according to POISINDEX (R), the information resource used by the majority of U.S. poison control centers, a 50-pound child would have to eat more than 1.25 pounds of poinsettia bracts (500 to 600 leaves) to exceed the experimental doses that found no toxicity" ("The Facts About Poinsettia", 1998).
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