Planting Bougainvillea

The first consideration when planting bougainvillea is choosing the right bougainvillea variety .

This small plant is growing in a trough at the Central Florida Zoo and Botanical Garden in Sanford, Florida.

Some are more cold hardy than others.

Some are more compact growers.

Some are natural shrubs while others will reach for the tree tops. Pick one that will work with you not against you. Who needs another battle to fight?

Before planting bougainvillea don heavy gloves. Bougainvilleas are armed with needle-sharp thorns.

Ladies in hot climates used to plant them under their bedroom windows. They could sleep with the window open without fear-- under the protection of a thousand tiny daggers.

Cheap Bougainvillea Plants Here

If you are at the outer limit of the plant's hardiness zone, plant it near a wall or facing south to provide it with extra heat and frost protection.

They are drought tolerant and like to dry between watering. If they are kept too wet, they may not bloom well. This goes double if you're over wintering them indoors.

The same goes for over feeding. This tends to cause them to produce a lot of leaves and not many flowers. Feed once or twice a year with a bloom booster. You could also use a balanced fertilizer and supplement it with a sprinkling of super phosphate.

Pruning Bougainvillea

If you are planting bougainvillea and want a low shrub, chose a low growing variety. The plant in this photo is a tall variety pruned to keep it low. This removes most of the colorful bracts.

They should give you hazard pay for doing it. Remember those heavy gloves you used to plant it in the first place? You'll be needing those. That's the bad news.

This Bougainvillea glabra bonsai is 30 years old.

It is on display in the Japanese garden at Heathcote Botanical Gardens in Fort Pierce, Florida.
Close-up of the trunk of the bonsai pictured above.
The good news is: bougainvillea can take any amount or type of pruning you are brave enough to dish out. Trim it to any shape or size you like. The best time to prune is in the spring when you need to remove frost damage anyway, or just after a flush of bloom.

Bouganivillea tree growing at the Maui Tropical Plantation.

To make a bougainvillea tree: Train the young plant to standard by selecting the strongest shoot and removing all the others at the soil level.

Alternatively, you could select three shoots and braid them together to get a more interesting trunk. This is an especially good technique to use with a climber. Whichever trunk you do, tie it to a stake to keep it straight.New shoot s will keep trying to grow from the trunk. Just pinch them off as you notice them.

When the trunk is as tall as you want it to be, pinch the growing tip off. This will force branching, creating the "head" or top of the tree. As these shoots grow, keep pinching them to make the top bushy. If you are training a shrubby variety, it will have a thick, bushy top--like most trees. If you are training a climber, it will develop a weeping head which can be very pretty.

Eventually, the trunk will become thick and very woody. It will, however, never be strong enough to withstand hurricane force winds. The wood is soft and brittle. Trained to standard, it will be top heavy when wet. The trunk could snap in a storm.

If you live in a place that is often threatened by hurricanes, try planting bougainvillea trees in containers. That way, they can be moved under cover. Alternatively, plant in a wind protected spot away from any glass.





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