Hi all!

I'm needing advice on what next to do with my poinsettia, please

I have successfully transplanted my poinsettia into my garden. Here she has
grown beautifully for the last 3 or 4 years.
I live in South Africa, so our climate is a bit different - winter June to
August!
Therefore my poinsettia has done its flowering and now as we go into a hot
spring I need to know what next - as normally she would have been hit by
frost and I would have trimmed her right down and she would have "started"
all over again.

But I had no frost this past winter so she is still in beautiful bloom with
the oldest flowers already turning back to green.

My question is: do I prune, trim her in any way now or leave her? She is
huge! And growing a little awkwardly into a pathway. I do not know anything
about pruning!
My crude way of cutting her frosted bits off previously would probably be
frowned upon by any experienced gardener LOL
I think I have just been very lucky with this plant and her positioning.

It just seems such a shame to trim her now as I would end up with odd
looking wooden stems and no leaves or flowers?

Please advise!

Thank you
Andrea

I've seen poinsettias growing in the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia and
they were about 8ft tall. They framed a pathway to a hotel along with
Brugmansias. Your pruning method of taking out the frosted bits seems
like a good method of tidying up the plant and can not be considered
crude. It is the basis of a lot of spring pruning, take out disesed,
damaged and crossing branches. If you feel unhappy about trimming the
plant back down to emulate what the frost would have done and want to
keep some of the foliage intact then try taking about one third of the
stems back to a low level and include the one that is causing the
obstruction. To keep the shape, look for dormant buds on the stems you
are cutting and cut just above one that is pointing out from the plant.