Poinsettias in every color; even blue

Longtime readers of this blog will know that I have a love-hate relationship with poinsettias. I love them because they are one of the few plants that can bring some color into the house during these darkest days and because even if you do nothing else, a red poinsettia makes your house look holiday-ish. I sort of hate them because after Christmas I want them (and all the rest of my Christmas decorations) to just go away so I can get busy planning for spring (it's a sickness). And then I'm forced to do things like this or this.

Apparently poinsettias, like so many other plants, are a hybridizer's dream because there are certainly a variety of them to be found these days. The old days of red or white are long gone.

I swung by a local nursery last weekend and popped into their greenhouse to find a sea of poinsettias in almost every color.

In addition to the usual solid red, white and pink varieties, there were variations on red (burgundy) and the very dark-leaved on above. 

There was one that looked like it got in the way of one of my crazy spray-painting projects:

This softly colored blush and cream one:

A darker, reversed version of that one with an almost coral color:

This one was a pinky red on the edges with a Pepto-Bismal pink center, but that's not what I liked about it: 

Take a closer look. Do you see the cool accidental variation on that plant? One bract was split right down the center with red on one half and white on the other. I hope some smart hybridizer figures out how to isolate and stabilize that because that would be a very cool looking poinsettia.

And then we get the most hideous of the offerings. The dyed blue poinsettia. Let's just get this out in the world: no flower that is dyed blue is a good thing. Real blue flowers (Himalayan blue poppies and some delphiniums are the first that come to mind) are stunning treasures. This, not so much.

 My favorite of all the poinsettias I saw was this one, which manages to take just a tiny twist on the traditional with the variegated leaves.

Do you decorate with poinsettias? What do you do with them when the holidays are over? Are you a blatant plant killer like myself or are you overcome by guilt so that you actually keep the thing alive until spring? 

Want to test your knowledge about poinsettias? Take this little quiz on the favorite flower of the holiday season. I got one of them wrong.