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hello YouTube Merry Christmas welcome
back to my channel in today's video I
thought it'd be fitting we um talk about
point setas a little bit so my wife was
nice enough to bring a couple home and
um she just picked them up at at Walmart
I think or somewhere where she was out
um doing some Christmas shopping and
yeah I just thought we'd sort of talk
about the care and culture of point
settas over the holidays a lot of you
guys are going to receive or buy point
setus and they make perfect beautiful
holiday arrangements and they just they
look fantastic I mean look at how
brilliantly red this one is and she
actually picked me up another one over
there as well that I'll show you in just
a second but I just wanted to go over a
few tips and tricks to to maintain your
point seta over the holidays and um then
after the holidays are over you can
decide whether you want to keep it and
continue on in the spring growing it as
a house plant or as a tropical plant but
that'll be for a different video we'll
call this part one that'll be part two
and so this is just going to be car and
cultureal point settas over the holidays
so the first thing you'll probably
notice when you bring them home are
there somewhat packaged like this it
makes it very hard for you to choose one
in the store of course ideally you want
to be able to see them and their foliage
out on display you want to avoid buying
any that are already wilted potentially
broken in there or anything like that so
you want to be able to check the stem if
you can um and make sure that nothing's
really wilted and these ones do seem
pretty good there there's nothing um to
indicate anything is is wrong with them
at all so we have of course we want to
remove the the cell F plastic that is
for shipping although it has a nice bow
on it it's um not at all practical to
keep them in this cellophane here so but
it does keep them safe on the way home
and it does keep them safe for transport
so I'm going to throw that behind you
and this is sort of a a beautiful red
and white one you can sort of see the
well you'll definitely be able to see
the difference here one's sort of your
more traditional one is more more of a
new style I guess um you're seeing a lot
of variety especially lately and if you
look under one's white and one's
definitely green underneath so the other
thing we want to do is now that we can
sort of see in there is although this
cellophane here we're still working with
cellophane looks um nicer than the pot
in a perfect world ideally you're going
to want to take this out of the
cellophane here so let's just do
that the reason we want to take it out
of the cellophane is cuz this little
thing it's very unpractical I'm just
shaking the dirt out there the joys of
working in the greenhouse right it's
very unpractical it it gives no drainage
to the plant so that's going to be the
next topic that we talk about is going
to be the drainage for the plant so in a
perfect world you know if you want to
cover this up you could put like a nice
sleeve over it um an ornamental pot sort
of thing but you want some drain holes
in there so it can drain and when you
bring it home we'll clean up all the
leaves off the
bottom which I'm doing now I'm seeing
this for the first time too so we're
cleaning up all the leaves I'll put them
down and right now it's in sort of a
peetey cocoa fibery mix it's nice and
Airy and light and if I put my finger in
there I can feel that it's still
slightly damp and I can tell this is
going to be a very very water retentive
mix now while we're while they're inside
for the holidays we do want to keep them
moist we don't want to keep them or we
don't want to allow them to dry out so
you always want to be able to stick your
finger in the media and you can tell
after it's been there for a second or
two how moist it is if it's becoming dry
then I would give it a little bit of
water we don't want it to be sopping wet
um if it is still damp to the touch I
would leave it for another day and just
check it the next day so this one right
now I'm sure hasn't been watered since
it left the wherever it came from
and it's still I'll give it some water
after the video but just a little bit we
don't want to soak it we don't want to
soak this pot this would take a long
time to dry out and Believe It or Not
these are probably just cuting this
isn't a seed growing plant a seed
growing plant this is just a cutting so
it may have a good root system it may
have a very weak root system but if it
has a weak root system and you overwater
it the pot is going to stay too wet for
too long and it's actually going to rot
what little root system it has so if we
allow it to be more on the um moist to
drier side then it's going to allow the
roots to be able to work its way out
looking for moisture and you're going to
have a healthier plant so that sort of
tip for watering now what you can do is
if you absolutely love these
things which you don't hate them but um
they're just not practical cuz they
don't allow it to drain cut a bunch of
drain holes in the bottom a bunch of
slits you you need this to be able to
drain out properly in case you overwater
it so I'm going to put this back in
there for now
and have a look at this guy as well you
as I say I really like the red ones so
I'm going to just clear up some of these
leaves and stuff on the bottom that have
fallen off while we talk and this one is
a little bit drier than the last so I
will definitely be giving this one a bit
of water there's a few old leaves that
are down there so I'll clean those up
they can cause fungus and mold to form
especially once the the soil is moist
and the last thing you want is for it to
be so dry that the soil actually starts
shrinking in then you know you've gone
too far so nice and evenly moist as for
where to put these guys well they are
very versatile but they are living plant
so ideally buy a window is going to be
great now this time of year in the
northern hemisphere any window will do
but preferably a South window where it's
nice and bright as bright as it can
possibly be this time of year uh we
don't have to worry about the sun
cooking it or anything like that it's
just too low in the sky and there's not
enough heat in it so A nice bright
window will be great for these as for
temperature again very very versatile
plant so in our in the short term and
for this video cuz all we're talking
about is Christmas care and and the
seasonal care of these guys the winter
season we can keep this from a
temperature range of anywhere from 15
celus right up until whatever your
normal household temperature is 20 22 25
they will tolerate it all keep in mind
if it's cooler water less if it's warmer
water more cuz it is going to dry out
faster but any temperature range that is
within the household Norms will be fine
for them what you do want to avoid are
drafts and anything that's sort of out
of the the normal so you wouldn't want
to put this on a table with the
baseboard heater right under it or with
the the um heat pump blowing up cold or
warm dry air right on this dry air is
not going to be so good for it and it's
sort of unstable it's going to be hot
and cold and dry and same with if you
put this on a table right by your front
door and we don't get that cold here but
even here you know it's drafty so if
you're minus 10 or 20 Celsius and just
right by the the door as you open and
close it it's not going to appreciate it
very much and it is going to um start to
lose it leaves much quicker so a few
final notes um these are not the flowers
this is just called a Brack the flower
is actually in there and it's a fairly
unimpressive little thing we definitely
Grill Point sets or display Point sets
for the Brack here um the other thing I
wanted to touch base on I think that's
pretty much it for care we covered light
we covered temperature we covered
watering um humidity is not going to be
picky and if you're just growing up for
the season you're not going to have a
whole lot of choice for humidity anyways
so we won't worry too much about
humidity but when I was looking into
them I was on um Wikipedia there and I
found something that I wasn't aware
of and I printed it off because I do
want to um say it is from Wikipedia this
is nothing that I'm saying this is just
something that I'm quoting and I just um
highlighted a bit of it and I want to
read it for you and we are all aware of
how toxic these are or as Wikipedia says
aren't so I was very surprised and this
pertains only to humans keep and even
with that I'm going to put a disclaimer
up here I don't care what Wikipedia says
don't have your children eating these
plants um and this doesn't pertain to
pets at all so I have no idea how toxic
they are to pets so keep your pets away
from them as well but what it says and
this is printed directly off Wikipedia
is a common misconception of the point
set it is that it's highly toxic the
misconception was spread by a 1919 urban
legend and I'm just reading what's sort
of highlighted to give you the gist of
it I'm not getting into the full thing
uh Point set is toxic toxicity is
relatively mild its latex can cause an
allergic reaction in sensitive
individuals it's also mildly irritating
to the skin or stomach and may sometimes
cause diarrhea or vomiting if eaten well
so well a lot of plants so sap
introduced to the human eye may cause
temporary blindness the American Journal
of emergency medicine studied
22793 cases um in which there was no
fatalities and usually the case did not
even result in any kind of medical
treatment so it also went on to say for
example of how toxic these are a 50 lb
child 23 kgr child would have to eat 500
bracks to accumulate the levels of toxin
found to be harmful in experiments so I
was really really surprised that these
weren't as toxic as I thought I was
really um worried being we have a little
guy running around the house that um so
I look into that sort of thing but yeah
I guess that's a misconception I could
be wrong as I say I'm just reading this
from Wikipedia but
um it was interesting to me so that's
why I'm I'm sharing that sort of news
with you you don't have to be quite as
scared of them by the sounds of it as um
the urban legends have been made out to
believe so I hope you like this video
and if you want to see part two we are
going to go into General care for these
how to care for these after Christmas if
unless you want to pige it in the
garbage but if you want to care for it
stay tuned for part two and we are going
to do that right now
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