 Hello friends, do you know Poinsettas are one of the largest selling Christmas plants in the world. This is due to its attractive color changing bright foliage that look like a bunch of flowers. In this short episode we look into 5 tips on how to keep your Poinsettas in tip top condition over the Christmas period and if you still have green leaves a simple hack to convert to bright pink or red. Let's come in up. Poinsettas botanically Euphobia pulcherima which means the most beautiful Euphobia. It is a perennial plant. These are one of the most popular Christmas plants throughout the world. Now we look into 5 useful gardening tips and ideas on how to keep your Poinsettas healthy with bright colored foliage in winter and if your plant has not developed the leaf colors there are some tips as well. The first tip is on watering. Poinsettas do not like a lot of water. Over watering can lead to root rot and planted. So how frequent and how to water Poinsettas? Actually there are 2 methods of watering this plant. Firstly you can give it some sips of water like once every other day or give a full drench once every week. Or if you have the habit of checking your plants daily then finger dip method should also work well. That is dipping your finger into the soil for an inch or so and check the soil moisture and water only if it is completely dry. The next point is on soil. Like any other plant you should prod this plant with well draining soil. You can choose your regular well draining potting mix to plant these. I have shown some potting mix recipes in one of my videos titled Perfect Potting Mix formulae. You can check that from the end screen link of this video and also in the description of this video. Well the next point is on temperature and sunlight. It needs warm tan light. It's suitable temperature falls between 15 to 20 degrees centigrade. No direct noons and light. Few hours of morning sun is more than sufficient for this plant. If your plant has only green leaves and no bright red or pink leaves that is for your Christmas decoration then you need to follow some simple hack to change the Poinsettas color to bright red or bright pink. We will discuss this in tip number 5 at the end of this video. The next point is on fertilizers. You can fertilize Poinsettas once in a month preferably with a water soluble NPK feeds. Particularly with a nitrogen rich fertilizer with a higher end value but not compulsory. If you do not have it do not worry about it. This is because you are mainly focusing on its leaf growth. Again its NPK basics which we have discussed already in some of my earlier videos. Well you can also feed it with diluted compost tea once every 15 days. But it can also do well with your regular general purpose compost like a handful of vermicompost or even decompost cowden powder once or twice a month. Now the simple tip to turn your Poinsettas leaves to bright red or pink in winter and keep it ready for your Christmas. Yes but before this hack you should know the mechanism by which this happens. It's just simple. The Poinsettas are light sensitive plants. When you deprive light to this plant that is especially in its leafing stage the chlorophyll used to turn the leaves green cannot be produced. As a result of this total darkness and lack of sunlight the only color that will be produced is red. This is called photopereodism. Will not go into the details of this you can google this and learn more details about this topic. Well now about the main gardening idea to turn the leaves bright red or pink. Starting October or November you must keep your plant in total darkness for a minimum of about 14 to 16 hours each day like from evening 4pm to next day morning 8am. You can either shift your plant into a dark room every day at this time or you can even make an enclosure box to cover this plant during this time daily. Still your desired color is achieved. Do not forget to shift the plant to light and follow the regular watering and other care tips in the daytime. If you follow this routine for a month or two you should get your great looking plant ready for Christmas. So there you have it folks if you have any more tips or queries please do write in the comment box below the video. If you like the video please click the thumbs up button and share this video with your friends on social media. And as always, don't forget to subscribe and if you are new to the channel, happy gardening!