Something I Forgot

I love making poinsettia hanging baskets.  Although when I made them, I called them poinsettia "balls".  And the ones I made were not as kind to the poinsettias as these appear to be.  The poinsettia balls I made garuanteed the poinsettias died.  I was instructed to remove all the soil from the root balls and shove them into the basket base to create a pleasing poinsettia arrangement.  I loved making poinsettia balls!

Now I'm sure some of you are wondering a little at this.  Why someone who writes so much about peace and finding peace and being peaceful could so wantonly take the lives of little poinsettia plants.  Little plants that never did her any physical harm and exhisted solely to look pretty at Christmas.  How could I enjoy creating a hanging basket arrangement that garuanteed their untimely demise.

I'll tell you how, mass planting beds of nothing but poinsettias and mums, and poinsettia Christmas trees with these extrememly brittle plants.  Plants that are grown so fast in Canada to meet the Christmas demand that if you look at them cross-eyed the stems break.  Now imagine those brittle little plants in planting beds along the parade route at the Magic Kingdom, being stepped by guests who's only thought is to get the best spot for the parade.  All those broken plants must be replaced at 0430 the next morning by gardeners before park opening because the "show" must be fresh and "new" everyday for every guest.

And the maitenance doesn't end there.  The planting beds have to be blown off with leaf blowers every morning because the red leaves (what everyone thinks is the flower) are so sensitive to light that sunlight through water droplets on the leaves burns them and creates fungus problems (if you have these things in your house, always water below the leaves).  Every morning someone was blowing all the irrigation water off the plants.  But don't hit them too hard with the leaf blower because, you guessed it, the stems will break. 

Lets also just talk for a moment about the poinsettia trees placed on the walkways of the parks as little photo opportunities for the guests.  Little opportunities to lean back and break all those delicate stems.  Stems that must be replaced by gardeners the next day before the park opens.  Trees that require creative watering and leaf blowing techniques.  And the custodial peoples washing off the walkways every night, and damaging the plants and putting water and soap on the leaves. 

Now with all this replacing of broken poinsettia plant material, one would think that Walt Disney World was over run with poinsettias.  This is not the case (or it wasn't when I was there).  These plants are ordered a year in advance.  Some of them are specially created hibrids with spotted leaves, or pink leaves, or of a particular size.  Because they are ordered a year in advance, you have to guessimate how much damage you think weather and people will cause to the  "crop".  There were never enough poinsettias when I was there.  This particular "show" starts right about now and "runs" until just after New Year's.  I remember going on poinsettia "raids" to other location's plant holding areas in order to make the park look good (I say "raids" because they didn't give up their poinsettias willingly).  And that gets complicated fast because of themeing within the different areas of the parks.  Some areas, like Adventureland could have pink speckled poinsettias because it had a jungle feel, while the center of the park was all red (believe it or not there are color variations within the red poinsettias and the reds have to match!) with white mums.  There was to be no mixing and therefore break theme!

Although one park is blissfully poinsettia free at Christmas - Animal Kingdom.  Just one of the many reasons I transferred to that park.  Ah, lovely, tropical, poinsettia free, Animal Kingdom.

Yep, I think its safe to say I don't like poinsettias.  I in fact loathe them.  I should have mentioned that on the Christmas survey.  I intensely dislike Christmas Muszac (which was on my radio station this morning - gak!) and poinsettias.  Many people have tried to make me change my mind about them.  They have brought them home thinking I would water them.  No.  Disney Horticulture used to give these huge beautiful poinsettias to the gardeners every Christmas.  I would set mine on the back portch and watch it die a long lingering death of dehydration - just a small measure of revenge for all the suffering that species as a whole had put me through for the Christmas season.

I know, not a very peaceful sentiment.  In fact either you're laughing at me this moment or wondering why I'm not commited to a facility with nice padded rooms.  Hopefully, you're laughing (I truly meant this to be funny!)