Week of December 13, 2020

A truly enjoyable tradition at the University of Florida is its holiday POINTSETTIA Sale. The UF Institute for Food and Agricultural Sciences has a major breeding program for this Mexican native plant and its student’s plant club propagates thousands of the promising varieties for the sale just before Christmas. The proceeds go toward their annual trip to an exotic garden spot far from Florida. The number of plants is truly impressive, this year around 4500. Part of the sale’s enjoyment is simply to look at variety of colors, leaf designs, etc. in this year’s varieties. Another joy is to buy plants for my office co-workers as well as our Florida home. Joyce and I make the annual buying trip to fill up the Subaru’s trunk with the sleeve-protected plants. The classic red Pointsettia was the most popular choice, with a lovely pink and a dark claret red also chosen. For our hearth, we selected two salmon-colored plants to brighten our hearth. We are grateful to have this wonderful student project at UF to brighten our holiday home.