South American Plants - Bougainvillea

Name - This highly exotic plant was named for Louis Antoine de Bougainville, who was hired by Louis XV to circumnavigate the globe and ‘claim’ any landmasses not otherwise owned, to compensate the French crown for the losses to the British in North America – a bit like the Donald Trump of his century!

Description - Bougainvillea spectabilis, the original plant, is a woody vine that is native to Brazil. This plant has highly visible hanging bracts which are a purple-pinkish shade. Varieties have pale pink, salmon or deep red bracts. Note that a bract is not a flower! The flowers are inside the bracts and entirely insignificant.

Origin – Bougainvilleas make a lovely display in the summer when, if conditions are right, they should flower unceasingly throughout the warm months and grow new shoots at a very high rate. In the UK, this is a plant that can either spend the summer outside in a sheltered garden area or can remain in a greenhouse or conservatory- which must have good ventilation, as the plants prefer to be on the dry side in terms of air humidity. Bougainvilleas may need to be watered once or twice a week, depending how hot the ambient temperature is because although this is a plant that loves sunlight, it doesn’t enjoy extreme heat, nor tropical humidity. Despite all the rumours, Bougainvilleas are easy to overwinter in the UK, but they don’t like temperature change, so if you are keeping them in a conservatory or greenhouse during the winter months ensure they remain at 5°C or above, and do not allow them to get too damp. During the resting phase (ie our winter) be careful not to let them get cold and/or damp. When the plant becomes dormant it needs very little water, so only give them water during the growing periods, or when the compost is obviously getting dry or the leaves start to wilt – the basic rule is that more bougainvilleas are killed by kindness – which means they are given too much water than by too little!

South American Bougainvillea photograph by sjoe, used under a creative commons attribution licence

 

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