Pampered poinsettias ready for the season

By Arline A. Fleming/Special to the Independent

SOUTH KINGSTOWN — The poinsettias lounging in the spa-warm greenhouses at the University of Rhode Island’s East Farm have been fluffed up and pampered for 140 continuous days.

Since the plants took up residence there in mid-July, their volunteer therapists didn’t skip one day of individual, gentle care.

“Not Thanksgiving. Not Labor Day. Not Columbus Day,” said Francine McVay, program manager of the URI Master Gardeners’ annual Poinsettia Sale, to be held Saturday from 9 a.m. to noon at the East Farm greenhouses.

Even though 195 of the 1,148 poinsettias raised here have already left for Providence, where they are on exhibit at the Roger Williams Park Botanical Center through Jan. 3, more than 950 plants raised in the annual Master Gardener poinsettia project remain in South Kingstown.

These varieties, not yet introduced to the commercial world, will be observed by retail managers planning for future sales. Tomorrow, plants with names such as Chrystal Ice and Polar Bear, some 65 varieties in all, will be fluffed up one more time, and maybe even exposed to some Reiki – the Japanese technique of laying-on of hands for stress reduction – McVay’s personal plant secret for success. Then they’ll be introduced to the general public.

Saturday is departure day for the plants. Between 9 a.m. and noon, the poinsettias so tenderly tended will go off with new caretakers to dining room tables and mantels, hospitals and nursing homes, office desks and storefronts, leaving behind dozens of volunteers who have devoted hours of personal care to each flower.

“We do get attached to them,” said McVay, who drives to South Kingstown from her Riverside home to head up the project, which is designed not as a commercial venture, but as a plant science assignment.

East Farm is one of 30 test sites nationwide where poinsettia plugs supplied by four different growers are planted at the height of summer, inspected one by one daily and raised into lush plants. All the while, careful recordings are maintained of their growth data.

These plants are new varieties not yet on the market, and the growers need to know how the plants grow, or don’t grow, what their problems might be, and how appealing they are.

“This might look beautiful to you but we’ll have to write and tell the grower to revert back,” McVay said, holding a spunky-looking plant with variegated bracts of white and red, and one rogue red bract, which makes it an uh-oh kind of poinsettia among growers.

McVay said that after one season of raising poinsettias, the Master Gardener volunteers never look at the traditional holiday plants in the same way again. She admits to fiddling with poinsettias on display in restaurants.

“You look at them with a critical eye.”

Every day since July, a least a dozen poinsettia police have descended upon the East Farm greenhouses in search of potential problems among the crop.

“We took a proactive approach this year and responded to things before they could happen,” McVay said. She and the volunteers studied, researched and read “oodles of stuff” to keep up with the job.

“Part of it is experience,” she said, “but I spend a lot of time reading, reading, reading.”

URI is the only site in Rhode Island, and one of the few, if perhaps the only one, that is pesticide-free. Tiny wasps are brought in to take care of pests that might attack the poinsettias. That program is expensive, said McVay, and total care costs $4 a plant for each poinsettia, she said. They will sell on Saturday for $12 each, with proceeds going back into Master Gardener programs.

Even the volunteers have to pay for their plants despite having donated “scary” amounts of volunteer time, McVay said.

“Every day every plant is handled,” she said. Volunteers swarmed over the flowers on Monday, making sure the plants had enough room to fan out and could be easily picked up by the upcoming inspectors.

Ken Oles, a retired teacher, drives to Kingston from Wrentham, Mass., each week to tend to the plants because he said “it is relaxing,” and the URI Master Gardeners are the best among the best, he said.

Barbara Tuthill of Jamestown said the volunteer experience is educational, while Alfreda Peiglebeck of South Kingstown describes it as being “refreshing. At this time of year, to be surrounded by this.”

The “this” she refers to are the deep reds, creamy whites and fresh green of the flourishing plants, which have become as much a part of the December landscape as evergreen wreaths.

Pretty as they are in deep December, they’ve earned an unwarranted reputation as being poisonous. McVay produces a sheet of information:

“Studies conducted by the Ohio State University in cooperation with the Society of American Florists concluded that no toxicity was evident at experimental ingestion levels far exceeding those likely to occur in a home environment.”

In addition to the toxic reputation, poinsettias are known for their aversion to light at night.

“Any shred of light will destroy them,” she said, so while some people are able to keep the plants going after Christmas, into the spring and summer, directions in getting them to look good again next December must be followed to the letter, she said.

And because they are tropical plants, greenhouse temperatures are carefully monitored during this annual project. And buyers are encouraged to take the plants directly home after purchase. Don’t leave them sitting in a cold car.

All this for a pretty plant.

“It’s labor intensive,” McVay said of raising the plants.

“And it’s a passion.”

East Farm is located on Route 108, approximately one mile south of the Route 138 intersection. The Master Gardeners also will be selling wreaths and centerpieces, all to benefit educational and community projects. Each year, Master Gardeners donate thousands of hours of volunteer labor to projects throughout Rhode Island.

For information, check www.urimga.org.

Print this story

Email this story

Reader Comments