Trimming the Bougainvillea

Lately I've seen a rise in people, many from Arizona IP addresses searching for tips on how to care for their bougainvillea plants. I have written about my own bougainvillea in past posts but mostly just to complain about the plant. I thought since I am attracting this much attention for it, I should give a few tips on what I have done with my bougainvillea over the years.



Gardening by Oshee


For all of you coming here to learn how best to trim your bougainvillea? I'm not much of a gardener. Honest. In fact, we pulled out our nasty bougainvillea (get a thorn in your thumb and you'll understand).

That said..here is how I would care for the plant in the fall.

NADA
nothing..

Ok that isn't quite right. I would water it. I liked to let it get really big in the fall. Because in the winter, when the plant goes dormant, so many leaves turn the red color. It really it quite pretty. I like the dark green leaves with the red leaves. It seemed rather Christmas like to me. This isn't the time of year to really cut it back. You should wait to do that until after the winter freezes. Any freezing temperature will kill the branches of the bougainvillea, but those dead branches also protect the trunk and the plant should spring back to life quickly with spring time.

I also always liked putting lights on the huge plant. It would tower up to ten feet high in the fall and I would loop lights around it. Rather pretty, but a pain to get the lights back off the thing. Remember the thorns? So some years, I'd just sacrifice those strings of lights when I would cut back the dead branches.

I never ever fertilized it. I never did more than water it and it always grew huge. The key to them is to not overwater them. You water too much and the leaves won't turn red. You'll be stuck with a mean, thorn covered, green bush.

There ya go!