KNOXVILLE, Tennessee — Poinsettias are nature's way of decorating for Christmas.
In brilliant reds, sweet pinks and soothing whites, they brighten up any room you set them in.
And now's the perfect time to pick one up for you, a friend or a loved one.
Stanley's Greenhouse in South Knoxville is among the many places you can find the popular tropical.
Abby Stanley, the greenhouse manager, said they got their annual shipment of hundreds of poinsettias from Guatemala in August and have been babying them and getting them ready for sale ever since.
Do you know how to pronounce the name? Many pronounce it incorrectly.
It's properly pronounced poin-set-ee-uh. Many Southerners, however, say poin-set-uh.
Here in East Tennessee, we sometimes take the shorter road, Stanley said, which could explain why some of us cut off that last syllable. It's OK.
We can thank the first U.S. minister to Mexico for bringing the plant to America.
Joel Roberts Poinsett, of South Carolina, saw them while in Mexico in the late 1820s, admired them and shipped some home, Stanley said. He was a bit of a Renaissance man, dabbling as an amateur botanist.
Thus came our reference to the poinsettia, previously known to many as the "Mexican flame flower."
It's not true that poinsettias are poisonous if consumed, Stanley said. Other members of the same family are, but not this Christmas plant.
Caring for them is pretty easy, according to UT Extension's Neal Denton.
They need bright light but not direct light. Don't put them close to a heat source.
When you first bring a plant home, ensure the soil is moist, he said.
As a watering guide, Denton suggests one ice cube for every inch of the pot size, every day. So, if you've got a six-inch pot, then he said you could put in six ice cubes a day at the base of the soil line.
Check the plant weekly in case it's using a little more water than normal.
