Hi,
I got my poinsettia in November 2019 and never would have dreamt that it would last this long (in the past I have managed to kill cacti).
I have kept it on my kitchen window sill which is a bit like a greenhouse and gets sun from morning till evening and have watered it regularly, probably on average once a week, but mainly just by eyesight or touch. If it looked a bit ill my treatment normally involved watering it one more time, letting it go really dry, soaking it a lot and then returning to normal. That's always worked. I have moved it into a bigger pot with fresh soil twice now. At 10 or 11 months, autumn 2020, I tried to turn it red again for the first time by keeping it in a wardrobe. It went a bit red but not really and I know two mistakes I made (1 not taking it out into the sun for a few hours a day and 2 not having a bowl of water in there with it for humidity). Since then it had outgrown the wardrobe and I didn't have any other dark rooms so I didn't try again the following year. I have never pruned it. So that's the background story. It started out as small as your average supermarket poinsettia and has since turned into a tiny tree almost. It is about 1m tall now, with a very thick stem and hardly any leaves at the bottom, so very long stalks with lots of leaves at the end. I realise I should have pruned it earlier. Is it too late to prune it now? How would you go about pruning it? I am not actually that keen on pruning it, I love how huge it is now, but I have recently moved from a house to a boat and don't really have enough space (particularly head room) for it to grow much more, especially not if I want it in a dark room in autumn to go red again. Living in England with frost in winter I highly doubt it can live outside. What shall I do?
P.s. if you have a look at the picture and wonder why it is currently crammed into a tiny boat bathroom, that's to protect it from the toddler and dogs until I have found a solution to prune it and found a perfect spot for it.
Thanks in advance for your help.
I got my poinsettia in November 2019 and never would have dreamt that it would last this long (in the past I have managed to kill cacti).
I have kept it on my kitchen window sill which is a bit like a greenhouse and gets sun from morning till evening and have watered it regularly, probably on average once a week, but mainly just by eyesight or touch. If it looked a bit ill my treatment normally involved watering it one more time, letting it go really dry, soaking it a lot and then returning to normal. That's always worked. I have moved it into a bigger pot with fresh soil twice now. At 10 or 11 months, autumn 2020, I tried to turn it red again for the first time by keeping it in a wardrobe. It went a bit red but not really and I know two mistakes I made (1 not taking it out into the sun for a few hours a day and 2 not having a bowl of water in there with it for humidity). Since then it had outgrown the wardrobe and I didn't have any other dark rooms so I didn't try again the following year. I have never pruned it. So that's the background story. It started out as small as your average supermarket poinsettia and has since turned into a tiny tree almost. It is about 1m tall now, with a very thick stem and hardly any leaves at the bottom, so very long stalks with lots of leaves at the end. I realise I should have pruned it earlier. Is it too late to prune it now? How would you go about pruning it? I am not actually that keen on pruning it, I love how huge it is now, but I have recently moved from a house to a boat and don't really have enough space (particularly head room) for it to grow much more, especially not if I want it in a dark room in autumn to go red again. Living in England with frost in winter I highly doubt it can live outside. What shall I do?
P.s. if you have a look at the picture and wonder why it is currently crammed into a tiny boat bathroom, that's to protect it from the toddler and dogs until I have found a solution to prune it and found a perfect spot for it.
Thanks in advance for your help.
