Bougainvillea: care and maintenance in the open field
After wintering, the plants are transferred to street mode, with an average daily temperature above +10 ° C. Bougainvillea begins to grow actively, the lashes are stretched up to 3 m in length. The main care and maintenance of bougainvillea in the open field is timely watering and pruning.
Watering mode
Water bougainvillea in the garden in the morning abundantly 2 times a week with settled water heated in the sun. In hot weather, the leaves are sprayed daily.
With a lack of moisture, the plant sheds green leaves, with an excess and stagnation, the foliage first turns yellow, then falls off.
Note! Spraying does not affect the bracts, they are left dry. During the period of prolonged rains and cold snaps, the plant is protected with a film
The optimum daytime temperature for flowering is from +21 to +25
During the period of prolonged rains and cold snaps, the plant is protected with a film. The optimum daytime temperature for flowering is from +21 to +25.
Top dressing
Young plants are fertilized once a week, older ones - once every 2 weeks with a complex fertilizer containing nitrogen and phosphorus. How to feed an adult bougainvillea for flowering depends on what is at hand. It is best to fertilize it with a composition containing potassium, phosphorus and iron once every 2 months. Before each planting procedure, pre-watered.
Factors to consider when growing and caring for bougainvillea
In summer, watering depends on the daytime temperature, it is carried out in the morning no more than twice a week when growing bougainvillea outdoors. Spraying green leaves is beneficial to the plant, but the bracts must remain dry. In winter, watering is rare, only for a slight preservation of moisture in a coma of earth. You cannot fill the plant.
If bougainvillea in the Moscow region is contained in a container, the transplant is performed with a decrease in growth, which means that the roots do not have enough nutrition.
It is necessary to feed the plants during the growing season with a complex fertilizer, from spring it is necessary to use the mullein effectively. Excess nitrogenous fertilizers can provoke an increase in green mass to the detriment of flowering.
The plant needs diffused light in winter and a bright long day in summer. Direct sunlight is beneficial for bougainvillea, bright diffused light too. Good flowering requires at least 6 hours of direct light.
If the weather has turned bad, and according to forecasts, a long bad weather is expected, bougainvillea must be protected from waterlogging by all available means.
Reproduction of bougainvillea
The plant can be propagated not only by cuttings, but also by layering. The procedures are best carried out in the month of May.
Cuttings are carefully cut under the bud, treated with any stimulant to form a root system. On the handle, you should cut off the leaves at the bottom and plant it in a prepared peat-sand mixture (take the components in equal parts)
Plants should be kept warm, periodically sprayed and slightly ventilated. Juvenile bougainvillea will take root in a month or so. A more convenient and easier way of breeding for those who cares at home for bougainvillea is air layering.
The seeds should be soaked in a solution of a stimulant for four hours
Bougainvillea's roots are very delicate and thin, and extreme care should be taken when transplanting a seedling into a pot. Seeds need a constant source of bright light
It also requires a little heating at the bottom. Mass germination takes place at a temperature of about 30 ° C with a plus sign. Crops are constantly but moderately watered.
Bougainvillea from seeds is grown in winter in a kind of greenhouse, since when sowing in the cold season, increased care is needed, basically it is a good backlight. There should be a distance of 25 centimeters or slightly more from the lamp to the crops. The seeds can only germinate after two or three months.
It is generally accepted that bougainvillea maintains a normal energy balance in the home. The enormous variety and extraordinary splendor of the bougainvillea color during flowering can transform any home, making it charming, romantic and vibrant.
Home care
Genus |
Bougainvillea |
Family |
Niktaginovye |
Homeland |
South America, Brazil |
Escape type |
Straight, woody |
Inflorescence |
Racemose |
Petal color |
Various |
The structure and color of the leaves |
Ovate, elongated, pointed, deep green |
Flowering period |
April - October |
Fetus |
Does not have |
Reproduction |
By cuttings, in nature by seeds |
Bougainvillea requires space, as it grows large over time. It is suitable for growing in premises with large areas, greenhouses, conservatories. In indoor conditions, the flowering period of this culture is limited to several months, in addition, it needs rest. With proper care and conditions close to natural, the plant can bloom several times a year.
Lighting. The tree should be in direct sunlight for 5-6 hours a day, so it should be placed near the southern window. Direct rays will not harm the plant, on the contrary, they will contribute to the formation of bright foliage and lush flowering.
Air temperature. In the spring-summer period, an indoor bougainvillea flower should be kept at an air temperature in the range of 22 - 26 degrees. For the rest period, it should be removed to a cooler place with a temperature of 13 - 16 degrees. A cool hibernation will allow the plant to form a large number of flower buds.
Watering. Watering should be moderate. In spring and summer, this culture is watered 1 - 2 times a week, but make sure that the earthy clod is half dry. Bougainvillea does not like excess moisture in the soil, so excess water is immediately drained after watering. Since autumn, watering is reduced, but make sure that the substrate does not dry out.
Air humidity. High humidity is required, so regular spraying of foliage is necessary. Avoid getting water on the bracts. Also, to increase the humidity of the air, you can place a container of water or a humidifier near the plant.
The soil. The soil should be light, nutritious, water and oxygen permeable. A universal soil for flowering indoor plants with neutral acidity is suitable, or a mixture made by hand from leafy, soddy soil, humus and coarse sand, taken in a ratio of 2: 2: 1: 1.
Top dressing. Fertilizer should be applied from March to October, using mineral complexes with a high content of phosphorus and potassium, which have a beneficial effect on the setting of buds.
Transfer. A bougainvillea transplant should be done in the spring. This work is performed by the transshipment method in order to protect the root system from damage. If it is damaged, the tree will hurt for a long time and recover. The root collar should be above the soil surface. After transplanting, the plant needs to be watered and removed for several days in a shaded place.
Pruning. To curb the rapid growth of this culture and maintain a beautiful crown shape, it is required to prune at least 2 times a year.
In the spring, branches damaged during the winter are cut off. Young shoots are shortened by 1/3 so that at least 6 buds remain on them. Too long shoots are sometimes cut to the trunk if they spoil the decorative appearance of the plant. The second pruning is carried out in the fall before the dormant period.
1. Seven Secrets of Success:
1.Growing temperature: summer - 18 - 24 ° С, winter - it is advisable to provide a cool dormant period at a temperature of 10 - 13 ° С.Do not expose the plant to temperatures below 7 ° С. |
2. Lighting: brightly lit location, bougainvillea should be sunbathing in the morning and evening daily. |
3. Watering and air humidity: irrigate with warm water during spring and summer in such a way as to dry out a layer of soil 2 - 3 cm thick between them. In autumn watering is reduced and in winter the soil is prevented from drying out completely. The air humidity is increased only to prevent the invasion of harmful insects. |
4. Pruning: formative pruning in the fall to maintain shape, sanitary pruning as needed. |
5. Soil: organic-based, neutral or slightly acidic, nutritious substrate, easily permeable to moisture and air. |
6. Top dressing: every 2 weeks bougainvillea is fed with liquid mineral fertilizers in half the concentration in the warm season. In autumn, fertilizing is reduced and in winter the plants are immersed in a dormant period, refusing to fertilize the flower. |
7. Reproduction: half-ripe stem cuttings, air layering, grafting, seed method. |
Botanical name: Bougainvillea.
Bougainvillea home - family
Origin where it grows. Brazil.
Description. Bougainvillea is a fast growing tropical, semi-evergreen liana or shrub from South America with brightly colored bracts surrounding small tubular apical flowers from early spring to late summer.
Plants have flexible, climbing shoots. The stems of the plants bear thorns.
Leaves are oblong-lanceolate or ovate, with pubescence, arranged alternately.
The flowering of bougainvillea is not of particular interest - the yellowish flowers do not differ in brightness or size, the eye is attracted by bright bracts. Large clusters of pink, red, orange, or purple bracts form mainly in the summer months. Flowering plants are almost completely covered with bright clusters of buds.
When grown indoors, the plant does not form fruit.
In modern floriculture, variegated or variegated plants with white specks on leaf plates are found.
Bougainvillea flower - height. Up to 4.5 m without trimming. Can be grown as bonsai - with plant height controlled by pruning.
The flower develops quickly and in just one season can add up to 2 - 3 m. Growth.
Creating man-made beauty with bougainvillea
A single specimen of a tropical flower can delight from one to 10 years under cultivation conditions. Bougainvillea reaches its maximum decorative effect at the age of 4-5 years. Especially beautiful are the bushes planted in the greenhouse soil from the south side. In summer they turn into avalanches of flowers. Compositions with different colors are especially beautiful.
There is another way to use the effect of a separate bush with different colors. Initially, several plants are planted in one tub, an intertwined trunk of several vines and a lush multicolored bush are formed by pruning bougainvilleas.
Unusual and mesmerizing with mystery, bonsai from naked bougainvillea. This variety lends itself well to the formation of a trunk. Arches from lianas, pergolas, gazebos, whatever the skillful hands of an artist can do from living material!
Growing bougainvillea at home
Bougainvillea is a thermophilic flora that requires sufficient heat and sunlight to grow. Warm weather is necessary for a plant all year round, so it is not recommended to grow a flower in an open field if the air temperature can drop to -5 degrees in winter. In such conditions, the plant will die.
Landing
The light-loving plant is practically not afraid of the bright sun; in the open field in regions with a hot climate, it should be planted in a well-lit area. Quite often, the flower is planted near houses, various buildings, fences and fences, which allows creeping vines to completely cover these objects.
It is important to choose a plot with good quality land. It should be loose and nutritious enough. Slightly acidic or neutral soil is preferable. For this, needles can be introduced into the ground. The plant is planted in holes, the depth of which depends on the seedling. A little sand and mineral dressing should be poured at the bottom of the hole. Then the flower is planted. After that, you should water the seedling and push the ground.
To grow a seedling indoors, you need to choose the correct planting container.
The recommended volume of the pot is a liter and a half. The tight conditions will not allow the roots to grow too much, and the bush will be compact in size. There must be holes at the bottom of the container for draining the liquid. Before pouring the substrate, it is necessary to pour sand, pebbles or expanded clay on the bottom.
When preparing the soil, you should mix sod and leafy soil, sand in equal proportions. A small amount of expanded clay or small shards is added to the resulting mixture. After planting a flower in the resulting mixture, it is necessary to water the plant and put the pot in a well-lit place.
Transfer
Bougainvillea painfully tolerates a transplant, adapting to new conditions for a long time. Transplanting the plant too often is undesirable. A flower that is not yet 3 years old is transplanted every year after flowering. More mature specimens require a change of soil and pot 1 time within 3-5 years
Considering that in its natural environment the plant most often grows on mountain slopes, special attention should be paid to drainage. Its amount depends on the volume of the pot.
The new plant pot should be a couple of centimeters larger than the previous one. The root system should be very carefully removed along with the earthy clod. Old soil is removed only if it is already completely depleted, or pests have started in it.
It will also be interesting: Indoor balsam - caring for a flower at home?
Reproduction Bougainvillea
Three different methods are used for reproduction. Let's consider them in order.
By cuttings
The most popular way to propagate Bougainvillea is by cuttings, because it is the simplest and most successful. Semi-lignified cuttings cut in June are used as planting material. Try to choose cuttings that are not yet flowering, growing in depth or thickening the crown, so as not to spoil the decorative effect of the mother bush. Remove the lower leaves. Bougainvillea should be rooted in a mixture of peat and sand in a container with a lid or in a plastic cup under a film. It is advisable to treat the cuttings with crushed coal and a root formation stimulator (Kornevin, Zircon and others).
The substrate must be moist. Rooting temperature should be 25 - 26 g. The greenhouse is ventilated, if necessary, moistened. Remove the lid after the plant starts growing. It is advisable to use the bottom heating and backlighting, then the rooting guarantee will be higher. After one and a half to two months, when the cutting is well rooted, it is transplanted into a pot 7-9 cm high, filled with a mixture of peat, leafy soil, sand and compost.
It is very important to carefully transplant the stalk, because even if the roots are completely entwined with an earthen ball in a glass, they can easily be broken off or damaged by a careless movement. Do not pull the young plant by the stem
It is better to cut the container in which it was rooted. Grow in a bright place with an air temperature of about 20 grams. When the shoots have reached a length of 5 cm, they must be pinched. When the root system fills the entire pot, the plant should be transplanted into another pot, with a diameter of 11 - 12 cm. Do not forget about drainage.Water the young bushes abundantly, but do not allow moisture to stagnate in the root system.
Sometimes, to root Bougainvillea, the apical cuttings are cut in February - March. They should have two to three buds. The lower leaves on the cuttings are removed, the upper ones are cut off by half of the area to reduce the evaporation of moisture from them during the rooting of the cuttings. Cuttings prepared in this way are placed in a glass with a solution of root or heteroauxin for a day to stimulate root formation. Then proceed in the same order as described above for rooting summer cuttings.
Propagation by air layers
You can propagate Bougainvillea by layering at any time of the year. To do this, next to Bougainvillea, another pot with a damp substrate is placed. On the mother plant, a young, not yet lignified shoot is chosen. In the place of the shoot, where it is planned to root, make transverse cuts or scratches (to stimulate the formation of roots).
Now, the shoot prepared for rooting is bent over to the soil in a neighboring pot, fix it with a metal pin so that the place of the cuts is in close contact with the ground. When the roots start up, the air layers can be separated from the mother plant and transplanted into your pot.
Propagation using seeds
Growing Bougainvillea from seeds is the most difficult thing, since it is almost impossible to get seeds at home in the absence of pollinating insects. In natural conditions, hummingbirds are pollinators, and they live only in the tropics and subtropics. Reproduction of Bougainvillea from store-bought seeds requires a lot of time and attention.
Bungewillia Seed Box
Seeds should be sown from late February to mid-April. First of all, you should prepare a loose nutrient substrate from leafy soil, peat and sand in equal proportions (you can use ready-made soil for flower seedlings), and a container with a lid. Before planting, we recommend soaking the seeds for several hours in a solution of some biostimulant.
Spread the seeds about 5 mm deep into a moist substrate two to three cm apart. Close the container lid. For better germination, keep the room temperature around 26g. The bottom heating will not be superfluous - it is optimal for the soil to be warm all the time, about 30 grams. Seedlings should be periodically sprayed with warm, settled water and ventilated.
Good lighting is also needed. In winter, it is necessary to supplement the greenhouse with sprouts with fluorescent lamps or phytolamps. Seedlings should appear in 2 - 3 months. It's time to open the container lid. Densely sown specimens dive into cups in the presence of 2 - 3 leaves. Grown bougainvillea specimens are transferred from cups into small pots with drainage and suitable soil for adult plants. They put it in a permanent place and grow further according to all the rules.
Species diversity
It does not differ in an extensive list:
- Bougainvillea glabra This plant is five meters high and has bracts of various colors. They can be white, yellow, purple, pink, or red. The thorns of this variety are not very large. Naked bougainvillea is easily reshaped because cropping is not a problem for her. The year 1850 was the period when Jacques Denis Choise, a Swiss botanist, described Bougainvillea glabra. You can meet the plant in dry areas of Brazil. Usually it loves rocky hills in the presence of calcareous soil on their territory.
- Wonderful bougainvillea (Bougainvillea spectabilis). Fifteen meters in height is an impressive figure for a plant. The pink, red and purple bracts are large in size. With such parameters, the likeness of a liana can twine around the facades and walls of arbors due to the flexibility of the shoots and a large number of thorns. The flowering of the plant is April-December.The birthplace of the Wonderful Bougainvillea is the Brazilian rainforest.
- Peruvian bougainvillea (Bougainvillea peruviana). Humboldt, a naturalist from Germany, discovered this variety for gardeners in 1810. In a climbing plant, yellow flowers are framed by purple and pink rounded bracts. Peruvian bougainvillea has short thorns and slender ovoid leaves. Lateral shoots do not appear in this variety, therefore the variety is considered stable in terms of plant pruning. Colombia and Peru are the birthplace of Bougainvillea peruviana.
Three species were subsequently cultivated and breeders developed the following varieties:
- Australian Gold. A shrub with double bracts changes over time. Their original color changes from bright orange to pink. In some cases, burgundy spots appear on large oval sheets.
- California Gold. The plant is interesting because it often confuses the flowering time and "transfers" it to the winter. It has golden bracts at the ends, which is why it got that name. Over time, this golden bloom fades and turns into a beige shade.
- Double Lilarose. Flame-like bracts are the main characteristic of the spectacular variety. They will delight the eyes of a lover of all beauty for a long time, if you do not overdo it with watering.
- Double Red. This variety is valuable because its purple-raspberry color does not lose brightness during the entire flowering.
- White Cascade. Bracts of this variety are beautiful and resemble ivory in tonality. Some of them may have pink edging.
- Beggum Sikkander. It is a houseplant with light green leaves. The bracts are double-colored. The most popular combination in them is a white core and a purple frame.
Where to place bougainvillea?
In order for a tree-like liana to have a strong trunk, a lush crown and delight with bright flowering, the most important thing is to choose the right place for it. As a true beauty, she loves bright light, surrounded by which it seems even more charming.
In summer, bungewillia feels great on balconies, terraces, in the courtyard among flower beds in a sunny meadow.
In winter, she just needs warmth and light, so it is best to place a flower on a windowsill or next to it in a room with windows facing south. Being a southern plant that came to us from Colombia, the tree liana does not like even light coolness and drafts and reacts sharply to these phenomena by shedding its leaves. She also does not like it when her location is changed. If you frequently rearrange the flower from place to place, it can stop its development and "freeze" for several months.
Also, the flower does not like when its shoots are trying to twine around the support.
Types and varieties
The bougainvillea genus is small, it includes only 14 plant species. Popular varieties for growing on a personal plot and at home:
- Bougainvillea nude. The variety got its name due to the lack of thorns on the stem. During the flowering period, and in the southern regions it lasts up to 9 months, the plant produces small golden flowers surrounded by crimson bracts. They can grow both around the flower and around the entire inflorescence.
- Bougainvillea is beautiful. Long curving shoots are covered with dark velvety leaves. During the flowering period, the shrub is covered with a hat of numerous snow-white flowers.
- Bougainvillea Peruvian. The variety differs from others in that it does not release side shoots. The branches are covered with narrow long leaves with thorns at the base. The multi-flowered Peruvian bougainvillea has double stipules with a slightly wrinkled surface.
Growing and caring for bougainvillea
Bougainvillea belongs to the Beamy family and has only 15 varieties, but only a few of them can be grown at home. Among them, bougainvillea is naked and bougainvillea is wonderful.Since it is a tropical plant, it is grown in well-lit areas with plenty of space. It is quite difficult to get a beautiful bougainvillea at home, since it must be grown at a certain humidity and air temperature. In greenhouses, the tree is grown in large containers placed on the south side. Bougainvillea at home is best grown on glazed balconies, in which you can maintain the temperature in the winter within 10 degrees.
In the room, choose a place where the indoor bougainvillea will receive sunbathing for at least five hours.This is one of the most necessary conditions for normal flowering and growth of the bush. If the pot with it is in a shaded place and does not receive enough light, its shoots grow thin and long, the leaves are pale, flowering rarely occurs. It should also be borne in mind that the tree is afraid of drafts and cold air currents. In summer, you can place your plant pots on an open balcony, sheltered from the wind.
Much attention should be paid to watering the flower. In the summer, this is done once or twice a week, when the topsoil dries to the thickness of half of the phalanx of the finger.
There must be a drainage layer in the pot, since the plant painfully tolerates stagnant water. The water that collects in the pan after moistening must be drained, as it provokes root rot and plant death.
In winter, indoor bougainvillea is watered once every two weeks. The lower the temperature in the room, the less watering is done.