Blooming gifts

With a little love, affection and prudent watering, your Christmas plants can last throughout the year, says Sean Hignett Christmas pot- plants are not really intended to outlast the festive season, otherwise nurserymen would be out of business. But with a little care you can take those green gifts and make them last throughout the year.

Azaleas, like cyclamen, should already be in a cool but frost- free place where they should be well watered without drowning until flowering is over. They should then be re-potted - remember that azaleas are acid lovers so the compost must be lime-free - and pruned if they are looking straggly. Thereafter give them a weekly feed and when the chance of frost is past, stand the pots outside in a semi- shaded place. I find it less trouble to plant them directly in the ground, either still in their pots or out, then you needn't worry about watering. Don't expect them to bloom again for Christmas though. By then they'll be following nature's calendar and may not bloom until the following spring.A plant whose natural calendar has been distorted in spades is the poinsettia (euphorbia pulcherrima) or Christmas Flame Flower. In their natural state, in the mountains of Mexico, poinsettias are trees rather than pot plants and so far as keeping them going until next Christmas is concerned, the answer is simple: forget about it.Drugging the children would deprive them of the memories that are the entire point of this holiday. But drugging the adults could be an idea. A little ganja for my husband might help us both relax. I hear other Masters of Foxhounds are very taken with the weed. A friend who went to dinner at the house of one MFH told me that great fat joints were passed round with the port. I wonder what after dinner games they played? 'Run the pink elephant to ground', 'Hunt the savouries' and 'Sleep under the furniture'? Thinking about it, a ganja-smoking father wouldn't be a pretty sight.You'll probably find kalanchoe blossfeldiana bearing a recently invented 'popular' name on its label, but if you've been given a thing with glossy leaves and lots of tiny red or pink flowers, that's it. Despite the fact that its home territory is Madagascar, kalanchoe is even easier to care for. Simply re-pot in the spring, keep adequately watered and it should also flower again next Christmas.I can't imagine many things nicer than disappearing from England for a week and then returning to find that all the festive fun is over. But perhaps disappearing without six children would be one of them. It's not that I don't enjoy being with my children, or that my nephews and niece aren't perfectly charming, it's just that large family occasions are exhausting enough when they are only a few hours long. I need hardly spell out the kind of stress we may have to endure over the course of the next few days. How will we keep on an even keel? I'm going to spend a lot of time being massaged by beach boys, whatever anyone else plans to do.

The flowers are in fact quite insignificant and it is the bracts or, roughly speaking, top leaves that give the bright red, pink or cream colour. This has been fostered by imitating a Mexican mountain and keeping the plant in the dark for eight weeks for 14 hours a day and in bright sunlight for the other ten, all at a temperature of exactly 68F. On top of that, poinsettias are deciduous so, love them as you will, once the bracts get brassed off, all that's left is a stalky mess. Try the light and dark regime next autumn if you must but it's probably cheaper to bung the poinsettias in the bucket and buy another next Christmas. Cheaper still: buy an artificial one. It will last forever and no one will ever know the difference

Author: Sean Hignett