You’ll recall in my other post entitled Why I Hate Orchids that I didn’t actually hate orchids at all, and in fact was pressing for better representation of the orchid family in commercial production. Not so for the title above: I actually do dislike these plants, and guess what? I’m not alone. Ask any professional horticulturist, and nine out of ten will make a screw face at the mere mention of the name. What follows below are a few reasons why I discourage anyone from supporting the perpetuation of this species as a holiday plant.
I’m not hating on the holidays here, and I’m glad that plants have their place therein, but let’s just all let poor Euphorbia pulcherrima fade out into horticultural history, to perhaps be rekindled at some point (hopefully long after I’m personally pushing up daisies) as a kind of quaint recollection of when we used to grow impossible, stupid plants for holiday decoration.
1. They’re bad for growers.
One of the world’s most economically significant potted crops they may be, but often growers will produce these plants at a financial loss to satisfy their customers. They are expensive to produce (as they’re not terribly easy to grow, cost an arm and a leg in feed, fungicide and equipment to shorten the day length in order to initiate flowering, and losses are high if the crop is poorly managed), demand a lot of care and the return is just not significant to really justify it beyond customer retention, etc. With margins already slim in ornamental production, it’s infuriating to see growers take an unnecessary hit for the sake of a .plant that few end users even have much long-term success with.
2. They’re unnatural
Well, they’re not, really, but they sure don’t look the way we’re used to in nature: picture, if you will, a stick, likely leaning against some other, more robust plant, with a couple leaves near the top, or else just the familiar red bracts, and there you have it (pretty much how they look if you forget to water them once, but don’t let them dry down enough to completely kill them). Not much to look at save when it’s ready to flower, and even then I can think of at least a handful of plants that do the same thing without all the fussiness and nonsense (many, many species of bromeliads, for example, will flush an intense red when ready to bloom).
I’m all for daring displays of horticultural prowess, and a well-grown poinsettia definitely is one, but it just doesn’t seem worth the work, particularly when it’s not doing its thing with the bracts; it’d be like having an out-of-flower Hibiscus or something for nine months out of the year.
3. They’re a pain in the ass to grow
All the way through, from rooting cuttings to maintaining finished plants in commercial or residential settings, these plants work against us and seem to want nothing more than to curl up and die. They resist at every turn our horticultural whims, and seem to seek to revert to their (to me, at least) unattractive wild form at the earliest chance. Skip a single watering and they’ll never forgive you for it, and will drop a goodly amount of leaves to remind you of what you’ve done.
They’re a magnet for whitefly, and growers spend a fortune in pesticides and Encarsia formosa, a parasitoid of whitely (and which can incidentally often be more effective in control of this pest than chemical treatments). They are also very prone to fungal diseases, and cost a small fortune in fungicides throughout the production cycle.
They demand a lot of light, and many times the best that you can hope for (especially in a commercial setting where the plants need to stay where they’ve been placed, regardless of distance from a nice south-facing window) is to just keep them from losing too much foliage by Christmas, as to expect them to actually grow is most of the time completely out of the question.
4. There are better holiday plants out there
Have a look at Gaultheria procumbens, a newer holiday crop that seems to be slowly gaining momentum. A deep rich green with red berries that screams holidays. It won’t kick the bucket nearly as quickly as poinsettia, though it is not necessarily a plant for long-term residence indoors, but that may be besides the point (how many poinsettias do you see by the side of the road on Boxing Day?) You don’t have to water it three times a week, and, perhaps more importantly, it actually draws attention and makes a bit of a statement.
And if it’s just red and green the people want, the list of plants is a long one indeed: red is a colour oft used by plants to draw pollinators (especially birds) to the plant to achieve pollination, as red contrasts heavily against a backdrop of green foliage. Many gesneriads such as Aeschynanthus and Columnea flower heavily with disproportionately large red flowers, and growers can easily time these for the holidays. There are also shade loving plants that have intense red on the undersides of their leaves: Selaginella erythropus, for example, would make a great holiday terrarium plant.
5. They’re boring
So boring, in fact, that we’ve had to resort to sparkles and spraypaint to keep them interesting. I don’t think there’s much more that needs to be said here, but they’re like the Dracaenas of the holiday season; they’re basically furniture, a decoration that just happens to be alive. I personally don’t give them much of a second glance, and neither does anyone I’ve asked.
So the question is; why do they persist? Tradition I can see is one of the driving factors, and old habits do die hard, but at what point will growers wipe the latex of their secateurs and call it quits for lack of any really tangible incentive to produce them? Will the market continue to demand these plants, particularly if the industry runs out of new ways to spin them (spray paint seems to be the end of the line, but maybe there’s still a trick up someone’s sleeve)? Are people prepared to pay more for them? Or will they be supplanted by a plant with more positive merits that still upholds the festive foliage like E. pulcherrima? I can only hope so, as I for one am ready for something different.
