Poinsettias are among the most popular potted flowering or foliage plants of the Christmas season. They have been for decades.
According to the 2020 United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Floriculture Report, the most recent statistics available, the wholesale value of U.S.-grown poinsettias that year was $157 million. At the retail level, by most estimates, poinsettias contribute more than $ 250 million to the U.S. economy.
Long-recognized as the largest and most successful poinsettia breeder in the world, Paul Ecke Ranch in Encinitas, California, was founded in 1924 by German immigrant entrepreneurs who moved to the U.S. in 1902.
For three generations, the Ecke family grew and sold poinsettias, first as cut flowers and field-grown landscape and mother plants and, eventually, as greenhouse-grown stock plants. They moved their stock-production facility to Guatemala during the 1990s and, in 2012, sold the business and the name. The leadership team stayed on.
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