Legend has it that the poinsettia made its first appearance in the hands of a poor Mexican girl named Pepita who had no gift to present the baby Jesus on Christmas Eve, according to Paul Ecke Ranch, an Encinitas grower that supplies most of the flowering poinsettias in the United States.

Pepita’s cousin, Pedro, told her that any gift given with love would suffice. Hearing this, Pepita created a bouquet of weeds gathered from the side of the road.

But realizing they were a sad excuse for a gift, she fought back tears as she approached the altar where there was a statue of Jesus. As she handed them over, she happened to glance down and see that her weeds miraculously transformed into a red bouquet of flowers — poinsettias.

The legend was recently retold a slightly different way in the London Free Press, which had the young girl grabbing branches from a poinsettia shrub, not weeds. Either way, the poinsettia remains the traditional Christmas flower.

With Christmas less than three weeks away, it’s again showtime for poinsettias — and they are keeping local growers, retailers and decorators busy.

Poinsettias are the top-selling potted flowering plant in the United States, with $181 million in sales last year, up 6 percent from 2006, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

California accounts for 31 percent of the domestic sales for all potted plants.

At Green Thumb International in Ventura, nurseryman Jack Doughty said the most common question he gets from customers is how do you care for them.

“You want to keep them away from too much direct sunlight,” he said. And water them just like a Christmas tree, keeping them “moist but not soggy wet.”

Green Thumb is getting several shipments weekly.

“We go through them like mad here this time of year,” Doughty said.

One of the store’s suppliers is Santa Paula-based Do Right’s Plant Growers.

Owner Dudley Davis recently provided a tour of his greenhouses where about 80,000 poinsettias were growing. He pulled back plastic curtains to reveal what looked like a sea of red velvet.

“We do 85 percent of our production in the traditional red,” he said. The remaining 15 percent consists of five colors — merlot, apricot, marble, polar (white) and miro (a marbling of pink and white).

The season typically begins around Nov. 15. Davis said 10 percent to 15 percent of his crop is sold by Dec. 5.

“We’re wholesale producers,” he said. “We sell to the whole state of California and part of Nevada.”

For the first time, Do Right’s is growing a German variety called Dummen.

“All the genetics are developed in Germany,” Davis said, “and cuttings are produced in Ethiopia.”

The company purchases the cuttings and roots them at Do Right’s, a bedding plant producer that opened in 1973 and entered the niche market of selling poinsettias about 20 years ago.

“We needed something to do at that particular time,” Davis said. “We don’t sell very many bedding plants in December.”

“I love shopping here,” said Lin Johnson, a partner in Plant Persuasion, who was buying poinsettias at Do Right’s to take to customers in Brentwood and Beverly Hills.

“The quality is good,” she said. “The prices are good, and you can’t beat that. Those are the two things we look for when we put them in a home. We want them to last for the entire season so that when we take them out in January they still look good.”

As for caring for the plants, Davis echoed the advice provided by Green Thumb.

“They don’t like light,” he said. “We have to be very careful about that too, that there’s no light intrusion on the crop. The poinsettias is a photoperiodic plant, which means it blooms on short days,” he said. “They’re very sensitive to light intrusion. So if you have a poinsettia growing out in your yard, the light from your house or streetlights will probably stop it from blooming.”
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