December 10, 2023 • 18 mins
Did you know that how you water your poinsettias during the holiday season is one of the biggest factors of all in determining just how long your plant will keep it’s gorgeous colorful leaves in place throughout the holiday season – and that misting your poinsettia regularly can play a huge role in that too?
Jim and Mary walk listeners through how to best water their poinsettias to keep them blooming right on past the New Year - including a few tips and tricks that can really make a huge difference in just bright and beautiful they stay!
Jim and Mary walk listeners through how to best water their poinsettias to keep them blooming right on past the New Year - including a few tips and tricks that can really make a huge difference in just bright and beautiful they stay!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Welcome to the Simple garden Life Podcast, a program dedicated to keeping the yard
of gardening simple, fun and alwaysrewarding. Now Here are your hosts,
Jim and Mary Competti. Hello andwelcome everybody to the Simple Garden Life Podcast.
I'm your host, Jim Competti alongwith my wife Mary. And Mary
we're inside talking gardening today. It'sgetting near the Christmas season and everybody loves
(00:24):
them, and most people can sayit right. It's the point Settia plant.
Yes, it's a very popular plant, indoor plant this time of year,
and there's always a debate on howto say it. In fact,
we actually looked it up to makesure that we're saying it correctly, and
it's point setia. Yeah we have. There's ohio accents sometimes cool, but
it is. It is, sono matter how you say it really doesn't
matter. The important thing we're talkingabout today is how to care for them,
(00:47):
and most importantly is how to getthem to stay blooming and blooming.
We'll talk about that in a second. As long as they possibly can look,
they're not an inexpensive plan anymore,and they can come in a thousand
different prizes. It's really cool howmany different points eddie as there are now
you got variegated white, even salmonred, yeah, the traditional red and
(01:07):
all kinds of versions. But youknow, you spend all that money and
to watch your plant die well beforeChristmas Day or even not maybe a week
or two before that. You wantto get as much as you can and
you really should be able to,right, And there are a popular gift
this time of year. A lotof people get them around Thanksgiving in early
December, and you want them tolast at least to Christmas, if not
longer. Yeah, and you knowit's a plant that you can keep as
(01:30):
a house plant the entire year aroundand get it to you know, push
such colors out again next year.But let's face it, most people end
up purchasing these for one year.They and they want to have a display.
And there are some secrets, aswe're going to talk about today when
it comes to a several factors.So obviously light and heat and temperature,
we're going to get into those.But most importantly, and this is where
(01:52):
the biggest probably the mistakes are made, it comes to how are you supposed
to water your points eddios? Right, and that's true for all house plays,
but point setti is actually require aspecial technique that most people don't follow.
No, that's right, and youknow what we know this water is
important for every single living plant,even though a cactus in the middle of
the desert needs some amount of waterto survive. Obviously, when we do
(02:15):
things with tomato plants in the gardenor flowers, they need their points Edtios
are no different except it's how theybloom, which is why water and how
you give them the water is moreimportant than any other plant we talk about.
And it's probably like you said,you said it best. It's one
of the things that is most misunderstoodabout it and what we're going to talk
(02:36):
about today. So one of themost important things about a points eddia is
to understand, at least when itcomes to watering and why it's so important
it is to understand, and Iuse this word again, bloom how it
gets its color. It's not reallya bloom. There are actually blooms on
a points eddia, but they're notthe red that you see or the other
colors. Now, the red thatactually leaves the bloom is actually in the
(02:59):
center of those which is a tinylittle yellow. Yeah, it's in the
center and they're tiny. Yeah,the flower is extremely tiny, and it's
not impressive. And it's not whypeople buy points eddie as they buy them
for those big colorful leaves, whichare actually bracts. B are acts,
and it's just a fancy word fora leaf. And so when conditions are
(03:19):
right, you know, when youhave a Christmas cactus, conditions have to
be right. It has to haveso much cool weather, so much darkness,
and then it forces it to bloom. For a points Eddia, it's
the same exact thing. Has tohave so much darkness, have so much
temperature change, and then these bractsform. And when these bracts explode,
they're actually a shell of these giant, you know, colorful flowers. And
when I say red, it's because, let's face it, most people but
(03:43):
you do have the white ones andeverything else. They are all bracts.
And because they are leaves, andleaves are made up mostly of moisture.
It's why water becomes so more importantto a points Eddia than it does for
any other plant. And when toomuch or too little water it provides to
the plant, the leaves are thefirst to feel the damage. Yeah,
And the funny thing is more timesthan not. For people at home,
(04:08):
it's too much water that causes theproblem and not underwatering, although they both
have their issues. Let's talk aboutit right now. So underwatering, let's
think of vegetable plants hanging baskets inthe middle of summer. You come home,
sure, yeah, it's a hotday. You forgot to water that
morning or even the night before.And you look at them and it's exactly
right, they're all But what's wiltyit's the leaves. The leaves all shrivel
(04:30):
down and you put some water onit and they come right back. The
ballooms look kind of poor, butit's the leaves that really show the first
effect of water. Same thing inthe vegetable garden. A tomato plant it
gets too dry soil, or acucumber plant, what happens. It's those
leaves they shrivel up. So thinkof a points eddie. It has these
leaves and one doesn't have water,or if it gets too much water,
(04:51):
as Mary said, it's the firstthing to show up. So we talked
about being dry. So what happensif it's too wet. Well, points
eddi is are tropical plant. Okay, so They're used to moisture, but
not so much in their soil.They're used to high humidity and nice temperatures,
they're not used to being soggy.So in a container, when that
plant gets too moist all kinds ofproblem happened there. Yeah, the roots
(05:14):
get soggy. Exactly. What's thefirst thing we tell people when they question,
say, hey, my tomato plantsare turning yellow. The leaves are
turning yellow. My cucumbers are turningyellow. What our first knowledge is,
Probably it's gonna be too much water. Yeah, too much water. So
what happens when a points eddie itgets too much water, same thing.
Those leaves start to yellow. Theymay even start to fall off or look
(05:34):
really poor. And if it doesn'tget enough water, same thing, however,
with the points eddie plant, Rememberthis is that blooming period. I'm
gonna use blooming talking about the leaveshere bracks. It's just too confusing to
keep saying the word bracts. Butevery time it goes through stress, whether
it went too long without water orit's sitting in water too long, it's
(05:55):
going to shorten those blooms tremendously.And I think we've all had to points
any plants at our house where theylook beautiful. Then the next day or
two you see crumble little leaves layingaround that you have to pick up and
clean because the leaves are crumbling andfalling off. Yeah, and there's some
natural process. You know, ifyou're into January and that's starting to happen,
it's called it's the end of theblue season. But if you just
(06:15):
bought your plane a week ago andit just came out, or it's just
starting to come out, and you'restarting to lose leaves and you know it's
only December of the fifth or fifteenthor something like that, it's usually one
of three things. Water is thebiggest key, and like I said,
we'll talk about it later, there'ssome conditions in your house, light and
heat that can also matter. Sowe've talked about how important water it is.
Watering is, and it is andit's one of the questions that kind
(06:40):
of set this podcast up for us. We got last week and Mary,
I'll let you read that. It'sthe question of the week and I love
this one. This is one ofmy favorites and it's a great question.
It is. This comes from Christyfrom Upstate New York Christy asked, I've
heard it's best to water point settingis from underneath, or even dip them
in water in a bucket? Isthis true? I love this question.
It is. It is incredible towater points eddies from underneath. You can
(07:03):
dip them in, the soil getswet, you pull them back out,
you let all the water drain off, and you put it back in its
pot. Yeah, it's incredible.It's incredibly inconvenient. No one needs it.
If you have ten points, noone's going to do this. Is
that the absolute best? Christie?It is. But we've got a better
way to keep your plant perfect withouthaving to go through that hassle. Who
(07:26):
wants to dip their plants in abathtub every day or take them out to
a bucket strain them out. SoI wanted to cover that question because it's
it's kind of funny. It isreally one of the best ways, because
you're watering from blow and you're bringingit in what you don't want to water.
And we'll cover this a little bitmore in a second. Is you
know a lot of housepens your waterfrom the bottom of a saucer and let
it soak out, not a goodidea for Points Eddie is what they're talking
(07:47):
about here when they say water fromunderneath, the dipping it down in the
water, the getting the plant wet, they're pulling it back up, letting
it drain off so that it's moistto be good. And we'll get into
this after the break. You reallywant your your soil moisture level to be
somewhere between fifty and seventy percent atall times. Anything higher than that it's
saturated and it can rot the rootsand cause early problems. Anything lower than
(08:11):
fifty percent, it's gotten too dry, and then you're gonna have issues.
So let's take a break. We'regonna come back and tell you the two
ways to water your plant that arevery simple and very easy. They're gonna
let you get the most blooms foryour buck this year with your Points Eddia
plant. And we are back andtalking about watering Points Eddias and how to
extend that color time all through theholidays and even into the first part of
(08:35):
January. And of course watering isour key here. So there are two
ways that you should be watering,and yes, you should be doing both
if you want those maximum bloom colortime. To stay around. The first
way is traditionally' that's at the baseof the plant, you know, with
the old watering can or however,you do it right at the soil level.
But the second, and this isthe one that very few people do
(08:58):
to their points Eddias andy at itmakes a huge difference. Is you should
be missing them every few days.So we're gonna go over both, and
I think Mary is probably obvious tostart with the first one, which is
watering at the base level. Absolutely. The key with watering your points ati
at the base is to water itenough to get the soil moist but not
overly salgy. Like Jim mentioned earlier, points Seitia plants are tropical plants,
(09:20):
so that means they like the moistureand the humidity, but they don't want
to sit in salty soil. No. No, And you said it best
when you said you have to letthem dry out. So somewhere between fifty
to seventy five percent, when itgets down to fifty or forty five,
you want to put the really atfifty you want to put some water on
to get it back up, butnot to the point where you're soaking it
through. No, you want towater the plant right at the base,
(09:41):
right at the stem where the soilis. You want to water it so
that water trickles all the bottom andstops. Yes, and I mean trickle
and stop. Yeah, And ifit comes out to the bottom, it's
okay. Think back when we talkedabout soaking these down, how people do
it? You know the official bestway to water the key was to get
rid of that and shed that excesswater. Well, if you have a
saucer or something at the bottom it'scollecting water, that's okay. You may
(10:05):
have water. To just get ridof that water and make sure no more
is coming out. That means thatit's saturated through, but it's not,
you know, overly wet. Ifyou leave that water in there, you
risk something. You risk that comingright back up to the root level or
even worse sitting there and it's goingto start to swell those roots and not
let them take up any nutrients whatsoever. Absolutely, so, after you water,
(10:26):
let the water drain out, removethe sauce or tray below, dump
it out, put it back,and if there's more sauce or water that
comes down, you need to dumpit out. Absolutely, it's perfect.
That's that's exactly perfect. So howoften should you water points out of a
Plant's great question, million dollar question. There's there's a couple of factors that
you know that matter. I mean, if it's in an extremely warm room,
(10:50):
if it's near any kind of adraft, where's gonna dry out of
the quicker, If there's if yourhome in the winter time and a lot
of homes do this have trouble holdinghumidity, you know it's going to be
watered more often typically rule of thumbhere, you're going to want to water
it in probably every couple of days. That's that's usually when they get to
that seventy five percent high down tothe fifty percent level. But there's a
(11:11):
way to cheat that is far betterthan anything. We talk about this all
the time. I don't think it'scheating. I think it's being smart.
Well, you know how you wantto call it. But I'm just saying
that. You know, there areall kinds of people that can stick their
finger down in the soil where theycan look at the soil and they can
see what's going on. But ifyou really want to be accurate, get
yourself an inexpensive soil meter. It'sit's a digital display. A lot of
(11:33):
them will put a link on thesite here for that, but a lot
of them actually have multiple things.You know. Not only will they tell
you the instant soil moisture content ofthe soil as you probe down in it,
they'll also tell you the temperature ofthe soil. They'll tell you the
pH of the soil. You canuse these everywhere for hanging baskets, for
interior plants, for everywhere. Theyare magical, and I want to say,
(11:58):
anywhere from fifteen to twenty five dollars. You can pick yourself up a
really good one. Some of themare really fancy, but that's how you
can tell. You put it inthere. And if that's reading somewhere down
at the root level, don't juststick it half in chin. Stick it
about halfway down in the pot wherethe roots are going to be. If
it's registering between fifty and seventy five, if it gets down towards fifty,
you're going to water. If it'sat sixty eight to seventy five to even
(12:20):
you know, let's say it getsto eighty, that's okay. Just let
it come back down and you'll knowthe water you're gonna get really good using
one of these after a while lookingat your soil. But they really are
a fail safe way to be ableto tell the moisture. And people ask
me, how do I know whenthe water my plant? There are so
many varying conditions that matter that thisis really the only, when I say
cheating method, it's the only wayto know for sure when you should be
(12:41):
water right. And we've used thefinger test before where you stick your finger
down in and actually, you know, you pull it back up and it's
got a little bit of dirt moistureon it. You know your your plants
are okay if it's dry. Butyou know, this is the only sure
way to know wind of water andyou can use it for multiple plants,
oh rot the year, and youknow to tell if your pH and the
soil outside. Like I said,if you get the multimeters, they're really
(13:03):
good. So okay, So that'swatering traditionally. Now let's talk about the
secret to watering and how you keepthose leaves looking perfect. We've talked about
the tropical origins of this plant andhow it likes humidity. Think of a
jungle, you know you're walking throughand it's moist and it's wet and there's
a lot of moisture in the air, so you want to mimic that for
your plant. Now, think ofhomes in the winter time, which typically
dry. If you have a woodstove, the'or even dryer. If
(13:24):
you have furnace that's blowing their it'sdry. If you have any static in
your house, you know your homeis dry, exactly exactly. So what
do you do to combat that andextend those lives? And this is the
one thing that will extend that colorlonger than anything is to miss your plants
every two days. And it's soeasy. It's just a water bottle and
some water. And I guess marbefore we do that, I mean,
(13:45):
let's talk about the water that you'reputting in it. Right. You got
to be careful what type of waterthat you use because a lot of water
is treated and that can actually harmyour plants. Oh yeah, you have
chlorine, You can have salts froma water softener. So look, use
distilled water, use you know,purified water, use rain water. You
can use your tap water as longas you have an area of that tap
(14:05):
that doesn't go through your water softener. If you have one of those,
just trying not to use city water, municipal water. There's so many chemicals
in those they will also do damageto the leaves and shorten their life.
So put the water in there.You missed it. It can't be any
easier. You're just going to goaround and give it a sprits And I
think the key here is lightly missYeah. Yeah, you just want those
leaves to glisten. That's exactly whatyou want. And you want to do
(14:28):
that. I mean, can youdo it every day? Sure, sure,
but every two days is going togive you that extension to get that
full six weeks. And people askus all the time, like how many
weeks should they stay in color?A properly cared for plant can easily handle
four to six weeks and still lookpretty decent. So as long as are
hydrated from the soil and from missing, you could get a full six weeks
out of these plants. That's right. So that's how you want to water.
(14:50):
That's why it's so important. Nowlet's just take a little bit of
time before we wrap up today andtalk about those other factors we talked about
that furnace and that wood stove.You see the beautiful Christmas scenes of the
points Eddie is on fireplaces there.That's great when you like the fire,
get them away, yeah, thathe could really hurt them and drive not
quickly. Yeah, and it's gonnaburn, you know it can it can.
(15:11):
That over heating of the leaves canreally take its toll. So great
for looks people away. Also keepthem away from furnace drafts, you know,
the vents cool drafts. If youif you put your points Eddie is
in an area right by the frontdoor and people walk in and there's a
ton of cold air coming from theoutside once or twice, isn't gonna harm
(15:31):
it if it happens all day,Yeah, it's gonna it's gonna take its
toll. Right, they can't handlethose extreme temperatures very well. No.
And then last but not least,this almost sounds strange, but you know
we talk about the period of darknessto force a points Eddie to come into
its blooming, but it actually needslight once it gets to but the right
kind of light in direct light.Yeah, you don't want to get them.
Put them in the sunlight directly intoa window that's getting the southern sun.
(15:56):
But put them in a well written, well lit room, excuse me,
and it should be getting six toeight hours of that every day of
light. So again, if youhave these points Eddie is on a display
in a darker room, that's fine, but get them out somewhere, you
know, four to five six hoursa day that they can get some light
in a room where they can getthat ability to keep that color a little
(16:17):
bit longer. Yeah, that's oneof the most important things that you can
do is to let them have alittle bit of light, and it has
to be indirect, that's right,and then keep them you know, temperature
matters as well. If they're ina room that's around seventy two degrees,
that's gonna be like perfect, Butdon't set thermostat up. If your thermostat
set to sixty seven, keep itat sixty seven. And what we're talking
about here is avoid basements or coldrooms that get down to fifty five or
(16:41):
sixty at night, and avoid roomsthat might be tropical you know that get
to ninety if you're really hot andyou have a fireplace in there, it's
gonna again not going to kill theplant, but it's going to really drop
those leaves much sooner than you needto, right, and a lot of
points Eddie plants come with a foilwrapper that looks so pretty this time of
year. There's an important tip thatwe need to give you about those wrappers.
(17:03):
Yeah, that's probably the last thingthat we really need to cover,
and it's so important. So youknow, they look beautiful, but that
all that silver aluminum tile types,yeah, holds water at the bottom of
the plant. So you really needto take those off. You really really
do. Accept If you want thelook of it, just take a nice
sharp pair of scissors and cut thebottom out so that water can drain out
(17:26):
of your plant. If it doesn't, it's going to cause problems. Those
things make plants, They might makethem look beautiful, but they really cost
them on their life, especially withPoints Eddi, is because the water will
sit in the bottom of that foiland the soil will absorb that moisture again
and again, causing them to beoverly watered. That's right, So I
think we've covered everything today. Goon to Simple Garden Life type in the
(17:48):
search bar up top if you needto. There are always on the episodes,
of course, but you can alsotype in points Eddie. We have
a couple of articles on there,how to keep blooms going, how to
you know, water them? Havethem on all of our sites, but
we just thought it's a great time. We get a lot of questions on
it this year to cover the topic, and certainly happy too, and certainly
happy that we're getting into the festiveseason now right and in fact we have
some articles on Christmas cactus and Thanksgivingcactus plants too. That's right, we
(18:11):
really do. So thanks for joiningus today, Mary, I think it's
time. It's time and remember,whatever you do, find the fun and
gardening and grow something beautiful, happyguarding, and so long everyone. We
hope you've enjoyed this episode. Subscribeto the Simple Garden podcast on iTunes,
Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or mostof your favorite podcast apps. You can
also head over to simplegardenlife dot comwhere you can listen and read all of
(18:34):
the show notes to every episode.And if you have any questions, any
ideas for show topics, or ifyou want to share your favorite garden tip,
email us at the farm at owgarden dot com. Until next time,
Thanks everyone,
Welcome to the Simple garden Life Podcast, a program dedicated to keeping the yard
of gardening simple, fun and alwaysrewarding. Now Here are your hosts,
Jim and Mary Competti. Hello andwelcome everybody to the Simple Garden Life Podcast.
I'm your host, Jim Competti alongwith my wife Mary. And Mary
we're inside talking gardening today. It'sgetting near the Christmas season and everybody loves
(00:24):
them, and most people can sayit right. It's the point Settia plant.
Yes, it's a very popular plant, indoor plant this time of year,
and there's always a debate on howto say it. In fact,
we actually looked it up to makesure that we're saying it correctly, and
it's point setia. Yeah we have. There's ohio accents sometimes cool, but
it is. It is, sono matter how you say it really doesn't
matter. The important thing we're talkingabout today is how to care for them,
(00:47):
and most importantly is how to getthem to stay blooming and blooming.
We'll talk about that in a second. As long as they possibly can look,
they're not an inexpensive plan anymore,and they can come in a thousand
different prizes. It's really cool howmany different points eddie as there are now
you got variegated white, even salmonred, yeah, the traditional red and
(01:07):
all kinds of versions. But youknow, you spend all that money and
to watch your plant die well beforeChristmas Day or even not maybe a week
or two before that. You wantto get as much as you can and
you really should be able to,right, And there are a popular gift
this time of year. A lotof people get them around Thanksgiving in early
December, and you want them tolast at least to Christmas, if not
longer. Yeah, and you knowit's a plant that you can keep as
(01:30):
a house plant the entire year aroundand get it to you know, push
such colors out again next year.But let's face it, most people end
up purchasing these for one year.They and they want to have a display.
And there are some secrets, aswe're going to talk about today when
it comes to a several factors.So obviously light and heat and temperature,
we're going to get into those.But most importantly, and this is where
(01:52):
the biggest probably the mistakes are made, it comes to how are you supposed
to water your points eddios? Right, and that's true for all house plays,
but point setti is actually require aspecial technique that most people don't follow.
No, that's right, and youknow what we know this water is
important for every single living plant,even though a cactus in the middle of
the desert needs some amount of waterto survive. Obviously, when we do
(02:15):
things with tomato plants in the gardenor flowers, they need their points Edtios
are no different except it's how theybloom, which is why water and how
you give them the water is moreimportant than any other plant we talk about.
And it's probably like you said,you said it best. It's one
of the things that is most misunderstoodabout it and what we're going to talk
(02:36):
about today. So one of themost important things about a points eddia is
to understand, at least when itcomes to watering and why it's so important
it is to understand, and Iuse this word again, bloom how it
gets its color. It's not reallya bloom. There are actually blooms on
a points eddia, but they're notthe red that you see or the other
colors. Now, the red thatactually leaves the bloom is actually in the
(02:59):
center of those which is a tinylittle yellow. Yeah, it's in the
center and they're tiny. Yeah,the flower is extremely tiny, and it's
not impressive. And it's not whypeople buy points eddie as they buy them
for those big colorful leaves, whichare actually bracts. B are acts,
and it's just a fancy word fora leaf. And so when conditions are
(03:19):
right, you know, when youhave a Christmas cactus, conditions have to
be right. It has to haveso much cool weather, so much darkness,
and then it forces it to bloom. For a points Eddia, it's
the same exact thing. Has tohave so much darkness, have so much
temperature change, and then these bractsform. And when these bracts explode,
they're actually a shell of these giant, you know, colorful flowers. And
when I say red, it's because, let's face it, most people but
(03:43):
you do have the white ones andeverything else. They are all bracts.
And because they are leaves, andleaves are made up mostly of moisture.
It's why water becomes so more importantto a points Eddia than it does for
any other plant. And when toomuch or too little water it provides to
the plant, the leaves are thefirst to feel the damage. Yeah,
And the funny thing is more timesthan not. For people at home,
(04:08):
it's too much water that causes theproblem and not underwatering, although they both
have their issues. Let's talk aboutit right now. So underwatering, let's
think of vegetable plants hanging baskets inthe middle of summer. You come home,
sure, yeah, it's a hotday. You forgot to water that
morning or even the night before.And you look at them and it's exactly
right, they're all But what's wiltyit's the leaves. The leaves all shrivel
(04:30):
down and you put some water onit and they come right back. The
ballooms look kind of poor, butit's the leaves that really show the first
effect of water. Same thing inthe vegetable garden. A tomato plant it
gets too dry soil, or acucumber plant, what happens. It's those
leaves they shrivel up. So thinkof a points eddie. It has these
leaves and one doesn't have water,or if it gets too much water,
(04:51):
as Mary said, it's the firstthing to show up. So we talked
about being dry. So what happensif it's too wet. Well, points
eddi is are tropical plant. Okay, so They're used to moisture, but
not so much in their soil.They're used to high humidity and nice temperatures,
they're not used to being soggy.So in a container, when that
plant gets too moist all kinds ofproblem happened there. Yeah, the roots
(05:14):
get soggy. Exactly. What's thefirst thing we tell people when they question,
say, hey, my tomato plantsare turning yellow. The leaves are
turning yellow. My cucumbers are turningyellow. What our first knowledge is,
Probably it's gonna be too much water. Yeah, too much water. So
what happens when a points eddie itgets too much water, same thing.
Those leaves start to yellow. Theymay even start to fall off or look
(05:34):
really poor. And if it doesn'tget enough water, same thing, however,
with the points eddie plant, Rememberthis is that blooming period. I'm
gonna use blooming talking about the leaveshere bracks. It's just too confusing to
keep saying the word bracts. Butevery time it goes through stress, whether
it went too long without water orit's sitting in water too long, it's
(05:55):
going to shorten those blooms tremendously.And I think we've all had to points
any plants at our house where theylook beautiful. Then the next day or
two you see crumble little leaves layingaround that you have to pick up and
clean because the leaves are crumbling andfalling off. Yeah, and there's some
natural process. You know, ifyou're into January and that's starting to happen,
it's called it's the end of theblue season. But if you just
(06:15):
bought your plane a week ago andit just came out, or it's just
starting to come out, and you'restarting to lose leaves and you know it's
only December of the fifth or fifteenthor something like that, it's usually one
of three things. Water is thebiggest key, and like I said,
we'll talk about it later, there'ssome conditions in your house, light and
heat that can also matter. Sowe've talked about how important water it is.
Watering is, and it is andit's one of the questions that kind
(06:40):
of set this podcast up for us. We got last week and Mary,
I'll let you read that. It'sthe question of the week and I love
this one. This is one ofmy favorites and it's a great question.
It is. This comes from Christyfrom Upstate New York Christy asked, I've
heard it's best to water point settingis from underneath, or even dip them
in water in a bucket? Isthis true? I love this question.
It is. It is incredible towater points eddies from underneath. You can
(07:03):
dip them in, the soil getswet, you pull them back out,
you let all the water drain off, and you put it back in its
pot. Yeah, it's incredible.It's incredibly inconvenient. No one needs it.
If you have ten points, noone's going to do this. Is
that the absolute best? Christie?It is. But we've got a better
way to keep your plant perfect withouthaving to go through that hassle. Who
(07:26):
wants to dip their plants in abathtub every day or take them out to
a bucket strain them out. SoI wanted to cover that question because it's
it's kind of funny. It isreally one of the best ways, because
you're watering from blow and you're bringingit in what you don't want to water.
And we'll cover this a little bitmore in a second. Is you
know a lot of housepens your waterfrom the bottom of a saucer and let
it soak out, not a goodidea for Points Eddie is what they're talking
(07:47):
about here when they say water fromunderneath, the dipping it down in the
water, the getting the plant wet, they're pulling it back up, letting
it drain off so that it's moistto be good. And we'll get into
this after the break. You reallywant your your soil moisture level to be
somewhere between fifty and seventy percent atall times. Anything higher than that it's
saturated and it can rot the rootsand cause early problems. Anything lower than
(08:11):
fifty percent, it's gotten too dry, and then you're gonna have issues.
So let's take a break. We'regonna come back and tell you the two
ways to water your plant that arevery simple and very easy. They're gonna
let you get the most blooms foryour buck this year with your Points Eddia
plant. And we are back andtalking about watering Points Eddias and how to
extend that color time all through theholidays and even into the first part of
(08:35):
January. And of course watering isour key here. So there are two
ways that you should be watering,and yes, you should be doing both
if you want those maximum bloom colortime. To stay around. The first
way is traditionally' that's at the baseof the plant, you know, with
the old watering can or however,you do it right at the soil level.
But the second, and this isthe one that very few people do
(08:58):
to their points Eddias andy at itmakes a huge difference. Is you should
be missing them every few days.So we're gonna go over both, and
I think Mary is probably obvious tostart with the first one, which is
watering at the base level. Absolutely. The key with watering your points ati
at the base is to water itenough to get the soil moist but not
overly salgy. Like Jim mentioned earlier, points Seitia plants are tropical plants,
(09:20):
so that means they like the moistureand the humidity, but they don't want
to sit in salty soil. No. No, And you said it best
when you said you have to letthem dry out. So somewhere between fifty
to seventy five percent, when itgets down to fifty or forty five,
you want to put the really atfifty you want to put some water on
to get it back up, butnot to the point where you're soaking it
through. No, you want towater the plant right at the base,
(09:41):
right at the stem where the soilis. You want to water it so
that water trickles all the bottom andstops. Yes, and I mean trickle
and stop. Yeah, And ifit comes out to the bottom, it's
okay. Think back when we talkedabout soaking these down, how people do
it? You know the official bestway to water the key was to get
rid of that and shed that excesswater. Well, if you have a
saucer or something at the bottom it'scollecting water, that's okay. You may
(10:05):
have water. To just get ridof that water and make sure no more
is coming out. That means thatit's saturated through, but it's not,
you know, overly wet. Ifyou leave that water in there, you
risk something. You risk that comingright back up to the root level or
even worse sitting there and it's goingto start to swell those roots and not
let them take up any nutrients whatsoever. Absolutely, so, after you water,
(10:26):
let the water drain out, removethe sauce or tray below, dump
it out, put it back,and if there's more sauce or water that
comes down, you need to dumpit out. Absolutely, it's perfect.
That's that's exactly perfect. So howoften should you water points out of a
Plant's great question, million dollar question. There's there's a couple of factors that
you know that matter. I mean, if it's in an extremely warm room,
(10:50):
if it's near any kind of adraft, where's gonna dry out of
the quicker, If there's if yourhome in the winter time and a lot
of homes do this have trouble holdinghumidity, you know it's going to be
watered more often typically rule of thumbhere, you're going to want to water
it in probably every couple of days. That's that's usually when they get to
that seventy five percent high down tothe fifty percent level. But there's a
(11:11):
way to cheat that is far betterthan anything. We talk about this all
the time. I don't think it'scheating. I think it's being smart.
Well, you know how you wantto call it. But I'm just saying
that. You know, there areall kinds of people that can stick their
finger down in the soil where theycan look at the soil and they can
see what's going on. But ifyou really want to be accurate, get
yourself an inexpensive soil meter. It'sit's a digital display. A lot of
(11:33):
them will put a link on thesite here for that, but a lot
of them actually have multiple things.You know. Not only will they tell
you the instant soil moisture content ofthe soil as you probe down in it,
they'll also tell you the temperature ofthe soil. They'll tell you the
pH of the soil. You canuse these everywhere for hanging baskets, for
interior plants, for everywhere. Theyare magical, and I want to say,
(11:58):
anywhere from fifteen to twenty five dollars. You can pick yourself up a
really good one. Some of themare really fancy, but that's how you
can tell. You put it inthere. And if that's reading somewhere down
at the root level, don't juststick it half in chin. Stick it
about halfway down in the pot wherethe roots are going to be. If
it's registering between fifty and seventy five, if it gets down towards fifty,
you're going to water. If it'sat sixty eight to seventy five to even
(12:20):
you know, let's say it getsto eighty, that's okay. Just let
it come back down and you'll knowthe water you're gonna get really good using
one of these after a while lookingat your soil. But they really are
a fail safe way to be ableto tell the moisture. And people ask
me, how do I know whenthe water my plant? There are so
many varying conditions that matter that thisis really the only, when I say
cheating method, it's the only wayto know for sure when you should be
(12:41):
water right. And we've used thefinger test before where you stick your finger
down in and actually, you know, you pull it back up and it's
got a little bit of dirt moistureon it. You know your your plants
are okay if it's dry. Butyou know, this is the only sure
way to know wind of water andyou can use it for multiple plants,
oh rot the year, and youknow to tell if your pH and the
soil outside. Like I said,if you get the multimeters, they're really
(13:03):
good. So okay, So that'swatering traditionally. Now let's talk about the
secret to watering and how you keepthose leaves looking perfect. We've talked about
the tropical origins of this plant andhow it likes humidity. Think of a
jungle, you know you're walking throughand it's moist and it's wet and there's
a lot of moisture in the air, so you want to mimic that for
your plant. Now, think ofhomes in the winter time, which typically
dry. If you have a woodstove, the'or even dryer. If
(13:24):
you have furnace that's blowing their it'sdry. If you have any static in
your house, you know your homeis dry, exactly exactly. So what
do you do to combat that andextend those lives? And this is the
one thing that will extend that colorlonger than anything is to miss your plants
every two days. And it's soeasy. It's just a water bottle and
some water. And I guess marbefore we do that, I mean,
(13:45):
let's talk about the water that you'reputting in it. Right. You got
to be careful what type of waterthat you use because a lot of water
is treated and that can actually harmyour plants. Oh yeah, you have
chlorine, You can have salts froma water softener. So look, use
distilled water, use you know,purified water, use rain water. You
can use your tap water as longas you have an area of that tap
(14:05):
that doesn't go through your water softener. If you have one of those,
just trying not to use city water, municipal water. There's so many chemicals
in those they will also do damageto the leaves and shorten their life.
So put the water in there.You missed it. It can't be any
easier. You're just going to goaround and give it a sprits And I
think the key here is lightly missYeah. Yeah, you just want those
leaves to glisten. That's exactly whatyou want. And you want to do
(14:28):
that. I mean, can youdo it every day? Sure, sure,
but every two days is going togive you that extension to get that
full six weeks. And people askus all the time, like how many
weeks should they stay in color?A properly cared for plant can easily handle
four to six weeks and still lookpretty decent. So as long as are
hydrated from the soil and from missing, you could get a full six weeks
out of these plants. That's right. So that's how you want to water.
(14:50):
That's why it's so important. Nowlet's just take a little bit of
time before we wrap up today andtalk about those other factors we talked about
that furnace and that wood stove.You see the beautiful Christmas scenes of the
points Eddie is on fireplaces there.That's great when you like the fire,
get them away, yeah, thathe could really hurt them and drive not
quickly. Yeah, and it's gonnaburn, you know it can it can.
(15:11):
That over heating of the leaves canreally take its toll. So great
for looks people away. Also keepthem away from furnace drafts, you know,
the vents cool drafts. If youif you put your points Eddie is
in an area right by the frontdoor and people walk in and there's a
ton of cold air coming from theoutside once or twice, isn't gonna harm
(15:31):
it if it happens all day,Yeah, it's gonna it's gonna take its
toll. Right, they can't handlethose extreme temperatures very well. No.
And then last but not least,this almost sounds strange, but you know
we talk about the period of darknessto force a points Eddie to come into
its blooming, but it actually needslight once it gets to but the right
kind of light in direct light.Yeah, you don't want to get them.
Put them in the sunlight directly intoa window that's getting the southern sun.
(15:56):
But put them in a well written, well lit room, excuse me,
and it should be getting six toeight hours of that every day of
light. So again, if youhave these points Eddie is on a display
in a darker room, that's fine, but get them out somewhere, you
know, four to five six hoursa day that they can get some light
in a room where they can getthat ability to keep that color a little
(16:17):
bit longer. Yeah, that's oneof the most important things that you can
do is to let them have alittle bit of light, and it has
to be indirect, that's right,and then keep them you know, temperature
matters as well. If they're ina room that's around seventy two degrees,
that's gonna be like perfect, Butdon't set thermostat up. If your thermostat
set to sixty seven, keep itat sixty seven. And what we're talking
about here is avoid basements or coldrooms that get down to fifty five or
(16:41):
sixty at night, and avoid roomsthat might be tropical you know that get
to ninety if you're really hot andyou have a fireplace in there, it's
gonna again not going to kill theplant, but it's going to really drop
those leaves much sooner than you needto, right, and a lot of
points Eddie plants come with a foilwrapper that looks so pretty this time of
year. There's an important tip thatwe need to give you about those wrappers.
(17:03):
Yeah, that's probably the last thingthat we really need to cover,
and it's so important. So youknow, they look beautiful, but that
all that silver aluminum tile types,yeah, holds water at the bottom of
the plant. So you really needto take those off. You really really
do. Accept If you want thelook of it, just take a nice
sharp pair of scissors and cut thebottom out so that water can drain out
(17:26):
of your plant. If it doesn't, it's going to cause problems. Those
things make plants, They might makethem look beautiful, but they really cost
them on their life, especially withPoints Eddi, is because the water will
sit in the bottom of that foiland the soil will absorb that moisture again
and again, causing them to beoverly watered. That's right, So I
think we've covered everything today. Goon to Simple Garden Life type in the
(17:48):
search bar up top if you needto. There are always on the episodes,
of course, but you can alsotype in points Eddie. We have
a couple of articles on there,how to keep blooms going, how to
you know, water them? Havethem on all of our sites, but
we just thought it's a great time. We get a lot of questions on
it this year to cover the topic, and certainly happy too, and certainly
happy that we're getting into the festiveseason now right and in fact we have
some articles on Christmas cactus and Thanksgivingcactus plants too. That's right, we
(18:11):
really do. So thanks for joiningus today, Mary, I think it's
time. It's time and remember,whatever you do, find the fun and
gardening and grow something beautiful, happyguarding, and so long everyone. We
hope you've enjoyed this episode. Subscribeto the Simple Garden podcast on iTunes,
Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or mostof your favorite podcast apps. You can
also head over to simplegardenlife dot comwhere you can listen and read all of
(18:34):
the show notes to every episode.And if you have any questions, any
ideas for show topics, or ifyou want to share your favorite garden tip,
email us at the farm at owgarden dot com. Until next time,
Thanks everyone,
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