Kilmoon Cross Nurseries was started by my mum as a hobby gone mad. She had a tiny glasshouse when I was a very young kid.

She used to grow a few plants for the neighbours. It was just decided one day to build an acre of glass.

It has gone from strength-to-strength every year.

Now we have three acres of glass and about half an acre under tunnels as well. We’re busy here all year around bringing colour to anyone who wants a bit of it.

Kilmoon Vross Nurseries supply Dunnes Stores across Ireland with this 100% Irish-grown poinsettias. \ Philip Doyle

We grow just shy of 100,000 poinsettias every year. Of that, 99.9% of them go to Dunnes Stores. We’ve been supplying Dunnes for 25 years. We’ve been very lucky, they’ve been a great customer of ours all these years.

It’s important for people to know to get out there and buy Irish poinsettias no matter where they are. Stay away from the ones that are imported.

They don’t always survive the travelling that well to be honest – they don’t like the cold at all, so we have an advantage there.

We’re a family-run nursery here in Co Meath with 10 full-time employees.

The poinsettias are a great way of being able to keep our staff all year round. It’s another crop we can grow in the winter that helps us keep our full-time staff. A lot of our staff have been here 15 or 16 years.

I wasn’t always involved in the family business. I worked in recruitment for years and then when the 2008 crash happened I decided to come back here to the family business and haven’t left since. I do love it. It’s definitely a vocation.

Humble beginnings

There’s a bit of a funny story if you want to get into the myths and legends behind poinsettias. They’re from Mexico originally.

The story goes that there was a little girl and she was in the church. Everyone was bringing up gifts for Christmas and she had nothing. She brought up this weed and, low and behold, it went red. They’ve got religious connotations.

Andrea McMahon worked in recruitment until 2008, when she came home to join the family business. \ Philip Doyle

It has grown from being that years and years ago, to actually having its own day, Poinsettia Day, in the States. They go mad for them in America. That has spread to here over the years. They’re synonymous with Christmas now.

They’re very, very difficult to grow because they’re from Mexico. They’re quite labour intensive. They don’t like any sort of draft. Even to get them to go red can be quite difficult.

There’s definitely a knack to growing them. We get them in June as little cuttings. They have to be checked every single day. They’re just one of those crops that if something happens, you need to be on it. There’s a multitude of things that can go wrong with them.

We use biological controls here to protect the crop, different bugs to eat the other bugs, because they can be a host for a menagerie of things.

Plant care

In terms of taking care of your poinsettia, the main thing is to keep it away from your window and direct heat if you can.

The cold of the window doesn’t really do them justice and they don’t need a huge amount of light. In your sitting room – not too close to any direct heat either, as in a fireplace or radiator – is perfect.

With regard to watering, think about the fact that they basically grow as a weed in Mexico – you literally have to give it half a lady’s teacup of water. If you’re going to water them overhead, maybe do it every three to four days.

That’s depending on the size of the pot. If it’s a bigger pot then you’d only water it maybe once a week with one teacup. Most people kill them by overwatering them. You’re better off laying off on the water as much as possible.

You can keep them until next year if you have the patience. You can cut them back in May and give them a good clipping.

You can start feeding them then from June and July onwards. You can give them loads of fertiliser and hopefully they’ll go red for you again the next year or, if not, they’ll stay green.

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