By Amber Jurgensen | Associate Editor
It’s massive. Red blooms flower bigger than a man’s fists. The bushy body monopolizes a section of fence about 19 feet long.
It’s not a monster. It’s a poinsettia plant.
Sitting in the corner of Ellen and Gary Blankenships’ side yard, the plant, about 12 feet tall, has attracted a lot of attention around the holidays for years. People learn about it and drive by the couple’s home on Walker Street off Grant Street to take pictures and see the giant for themselves.
The average height of a poinsettia is about 2 feet, but some can grow to 10 feet after many years. The Blankenships have been growing their poinsettia for 30 years.
Gary always had admired the 5-foot-tall poinsettia bush his mother-in-law, Versa Dorsey, had in her yard.
One day, he cut off four branches of the shrub with his pocketknife and stuck them in the ground in his yard.
“I didn’t think it would make it; but he just stuck it in the ground, and that thing started growing,” Ellen says.
The plant, native to Mexico and Central America, thrived in the warm Florida climate. Year after year, it kept growing, until it became the mega-monster it is today. The couple says it was even bigger before frost stunted its growth about four years ago. Even so, the bush is estimated to be about 35 feet in circumference and has started to grow over the fence it boarders. Around Thanksgiving is when it reaches its peak, with red blooms dotting the branches.
“We enjoy it, especially this time of year,” Gary says, standing in his favorite spot in the yard to view the plant. “It’s perfect for Christmas — the red and the green.”
To many, the Blankenships’ massive poinsettia bush is a festive reminder of the holidays, but to them it’s a reminder of much more. Dorsey died in 1996, and the plant serves as a beacon of her soul to the family.
“It was part of her,” Ellen says. “That’s another reason I enjoy it, because we got it from Mama. When she saw it growing, she was proud.”
Ellen’s 92-year-old father, Laurent, lives with the Blankenships and enjoys the plant, as well. The door to the addition in which he lives faces the poinsettia. Laurent walks out the door onto the stairs every morning to look at it.
“He admires it,” Ellen says. “I’m sure he’s thinking of my mom.”
The Blankenships are attached to the poinsettia. They talk to the plant, urging it to bloom and dedicating it to Dorsey. Gary fertilizes it every spring and waters it once a week in dry conditions.
“The key to planting one is to plant it against something,” Gary says.
Gary has given away four other poinsettias he has cultivated. He also tried to start one by a shed in his yard. But his grandson accidentally cut it with a lawn mower, and it died. It was about 4 feet tall, and Gary had shaped it into a sphere shape.
“It’s heartbreaking,” Gary says. “I don’t like to show it or see it.”
Gary says he’ll try to revitalize the plant, but he is thankful he still has his first precious poinsettia. His favorite part of the plant is the blooms.
“I can’t wait until it blooms every year,” Gary says. “But I really love the double-bloom effect, where there are two flowers on one branch.”
“I go to Walmart and see the poinsettias and say, ‘Y’all aren’t as pretty as mine,’” Ellen says.
Contact Amber Jurgensen at ajurgensen@plantcityobserver.com.
FAST FACT
Poinsettia Day, Dec. 12, was named in honor of the death of Joel Roberts Poinsett, an ambassador to Mexico who brought the shrubs back to his plantation in South Carolina.