Now that Christmas Day is past, it's time for the annual dilemma - to keep or to toss your poinsettia. If you decide to keep it, you have a houseplant that's not very attractive once it starts dropping its leaves. However, you can pull it through if you understand what it needs.

A tropical plant, poinsettias like a narrow temperature range, 70 F days and 65 F nights. It needs lots of intense light for at least six hours a day. The soil should be moist and loose like compost, and the pot has to have lots of drain holes. If your plant didn't come in a suitable container, repot it before you set it in a sunny window. Also, place a pan of water nearby to raise the humidity around it.Near the end of March, cut the plant back to about 6-8 inches. Don't worry if it looks over pruned. The pruning will encourage vigorous new growth in May.Once the nights are warm enough, you can take your poinsettia outside. Mulch it with rich compost, and feed it occasionally with a good organic fertilizer if it appears to need it. By mid June, you can repot it in a larger container. Remember it needs good drainage and it doesn't want to be completely dried out. Also, you should pinch back the shoots to keep growth as compact as possible.Stop pinching back after Sept. 1, and bring the plant inside when the nights drop below 65 F. At this point you should have a healthy green tropical plant. Remember to give it a good wash to get rid of any insects or eggs before you bring it in.Starting around Oct. 1, the poinsettia needs complete darkness for 14 hours each night. This dark period must be followed by 6-8 hours of intense light to bring the plant into bloom. The temperature still needs to be around 70 F during the day and 65 F at night. Any stray light from a window or a lamp during the dark period can upset the budding process.It can be a fun and rewarding process to bring a poinsettia back into bloom, but it can also be difficult to reproduce the intense light and dark, the narrow temperature range and other conditions so natural in the plant's native habitat. I tried a couple of times, and ended up leaving the plant to its fate in the garden when winter came around.For a more detailed description on forcing poinsettia, see "Care of poinsettias," an online publication by the University of Minnesota Extension. (http://www.extension.umn.edu/garden/yard-garden/houseplants/care-of-poinsettias). Or you can call Penn State Extension at 570-325-2788 and ask a Master Gardener.Image: Poinsettias grown commercially.Paul Thomas, University of Georgia, Bugwood.orghttp://www.forestryimages.org/browse/detail.cfm?imgnum=5007038Image: single poinsettiaMike Dyche, University of Georgia, Bugwood.orghttp://www.forestryimages.org/browse/detail.cfm?imgnum=5007047