It just sort of depends on the particular year. Sometimes I get one or more & sometimes I just don't get any at all.
We do have one here growing in the ground which was quite common when we lived in zone 10 but I haven't seen up here. The previous owners obviously planted this one last year after Christmas. It graces the grave of their beloved dog & we vowed to be caretakers of that grave. When we moved in last March, the poinsettia was still in bloom & continued to have striking color well into June. It's too far from a water source for me to water it & I was sure it would succumb over the summer but it did not. It is now more beautiful than ever, lush & full & a little over 2' in height. It hasn't yet gotten any red coloration but it will I'm sure in it's own good time. But now I worry that the winter will kill it. We shall see.

Same here ... Sometimes Yes, Sometimes No.

Even though Poinsettia's grow here in Florida I have trouble keeping them alive for some reason. For many years I'd decorate with many Poinsettia plants both inside and outside the house. Two years ago I had about 15 or 20 and they were really beautiful. After the holidays I planted them in the yard and they did well for a few months but one day I noticed that some critter had crushed and broken branches on many of them so I cut them way back. They had lots of new growth and were looking really good again when a month or two later they suddenly all died! The master HOA in our subdivision has a boat that goes throughout the waterways spraying the weeds along the shoreline and I really think the chemicals killed them! Grr ... I wish they wouldn't spray along our property line; a few weeks ago I noticed dead grass along our property and the Clerodendron's behind our screened porch look to have been burned from overspray! This year I haven't bought one Poinsettia but I'm just getting over a 3 1/2 week bout with severe bronchitis so I never even thought about buying any this year ... maybe 2014.

My Sister has bought me a large red poinsettia the last three years. I keep it on my kitchen table as long as it is attractive and then discard. They are not hardy here. Mine comes from a good green house. I feel bad when I see people buying them at the big box stores as I think they have been exposed to uneven temps. and poor watering practices. Many are already dropping leaves.

If I see a sad-looking poinsettia on sale after Christmas, sometimes I buy it to give it a good home.

I use the artificial variety!!!!! The ones from the BBS all look so sad & I was not able to get to the sale at UF this year. We had a "wild" one in the ground. It would freeze back & then come back & bloom year after year. The heavy rain in summer 2012 was too much for it & it rotted away.

I'd like to find a hardy one & plant outside again.

If someone gives me one but never buy one for myself. My house is kind of on the chilly side so they start dropping leaves with in days of arriving. Also, I don't like the white milky sap that oozes from a broken stem.

I've always purchased my Poinsettias from the Big Box Stores (Home Depot, Lowe's or Walmart) and I've always found beautiful specimens. Many of the wholesale nurseries down here in Florida grow and shipped them all over the country so perhaps I've been lucky to get mine before they've had time to sit awhile.

I have a nice artificial one and usually buy a large one each year. I have had some different colours and/or bi-colours in past years, but my fave is a deep red. I was a little late to buy one this year and by the time I got around to it, the weather was either too cold and the best looking ones had been picked over at the stores.

On Friday, I made a last minute decision to drive out to a wholesale grower (former employer)and picked up a few for co-worker gifts and myself. The grower was throwing them out, since all their florist's orders were filled. Got an excellent deal and the folks that I work with were blown away with my gift of a poinsettia for each. I managed to fit 12 qty in my car of the 8" pot size

I buy new ones each year and usually throw out the plant by February.

Some years yes, some years no. Like Joanne, I usually throw them out in late winter since they're only a houseplant here.

Joanne, you daughter is very talented - beautiful avatar!

I throw ours out at the end of it's season as well. It's one of those "not worth my time" items- too much work to try to overwinter!

I have vivid memories of Poinsettias as a kid. Here in Zone 10 they grow like wildfire and can reach 15 feet tall and then some. People used to grow them in their yards and harvest the blooms to bring indoors for the holidays.
Back then (in the '60's) they didn't mass produce/grow them in the quantity they do now.
For years my mother was the head of the Altar Society at our church. She would put out an appeal to the parishioners to "donate" any blooms they had to offer...then we would drive to peoples houses to harvest them.
This all sounds well and good except for the fact that we had to pack the station wagon (remember THOSE ? LOL ) full of stock pots full of boiling water (hard to do if ya think about it...) and then rush to peoples houses, cut the blooms and plunge them into the boiling water so they wouldn't wilt. We had water boiling in huge stock pots on our stove for days on end. (When we would watch tv and some woman was in the throes of labor, some character in the story would always yell "Mother is in labor. Go boil LOTS of water". I naturally assumed that poinsettias and childbirth were intricately linked.

Yours truly had the honor/priveledge of getting to stand on ladders, cut the blooms, get that white milky sap dripping all over me, in my hair, in my eyes, all over my clothes, etc. and then into the station wagon they'd go. Then we'd go back to our house, boil MORE water and start the entire process all over again for Round 2 at the east end of the city. Forgot to mention that my 60 lb. Black Lab got to come along for the fun....ok, maybe that wasn't such a good idea.
Invariably, a stock pot or two (or 5 or 6) would tip over on the way home and we'd have water all over the inside of the car and sap everywhere as well.
This "ritual" was an ALL DAY ordeal but was actually the "new and improved" method of harvesting the *%&# things...prior to the boiling water method we would hold EACH stem over a flame to seal the ends of the stems to keep them from wilting. Talk about time consuming !
This is when it really became "fun" (term used in the loosest sense): After the numerous vessels of water cooled off, we got to shlepp them up to the church so the ladies could arrange them in vases. There were always X number of blooms that wilted regardless, so they had to be re-cut, placed in a NEW container of boiling water, and hopefully they'd recover. It always amazed me how you could take a wilted poinsettia bloom, put it in boiling water, and it would REVIVE. Nuclear physics is easier to comprehend than that.
Because I was such an obedient and naive kid, I was then assigned the task of cutting up wire coat hangers (hundreds of them) so they could be used to keep the stems erect and in place so the women could do their thing with their flower arrangments. Clearly this was exploitation of child labor. I realize the statute of limitations for crimes of this nature has expired, but.............
So.......in answer to the question of this thread, NO. I never get within a mile of a poinsettia...potted or not. LOL
Yes, they're pretty, but.......I'm all for the fake ones at this point in my life.

Ohhhhhh Mike! That's fascinating & hilarious all in one! I never thought about boiling water to seal the stem. Never heard of it either but did know about holding a flame to it. about the re-cutting the stem & putting in the boiling water & a wilted one will revive???? Yep, defies physics there but I've seen some weird things in my life soooooo....

WOW..................what I just learned about Poinsettas. Being a native northener, all I knew was they came in pots at the holiday.