-32_Protection - The Brilliant Bougainvilleas (Part 3)

Protection: The Brilliant Bougainvilleas (Part 3)

My bougainvillea 'guru' was a kindly and generous man and a brilliant grower of bougainvilleas. He was in charge of the bougainvillea displays at the famed 'Madras Club'. Every day of the year he would have at least fifty plants in full bloom, in fact, in such heavy bloom that one would not see leaves or stems, only flowers. (Let us call the colourful bracts, flowers, as most people see the bracts as flowers).

My dear friend, now departed, wrote a small but excellent book on the cultivation of bougainvilleas entitled A Handbook on Bougainvillea Culture and taught me his techniques for bringing them into full bloom.

Rama Rao hybridized many dwarf cultivars and was famous for his ability and promise to have a bougainvillea of one's choice blooming on the day or within a day of one's birthday in any month of the year!

In their native habitat bougainvilleas go through alternating periods of heavy rainfall and drought. If one replicates this process when growing bougainvilleas in containers it is possible to have at least three or more flushes of bloom in one season. This natural phenomena was replicated for India's climate, but actually it is successful in all climates where bougainvilleas can be grown.

Here is the method:

After flowering start giving less water and space the intervals of watering farther apart each week until a few weeks have passed and then discontinue all watering. The leaves will droop and some will begin to fall off. This is the same cycle that the plants undergo in their native habitat. When the plant is completely and no moisture remains in the root ball, even if all the leaves have fallen, then fertilize and begin watering. Your bougainvillea will burst into bloom with profuse flowering. When the plant has completed its flowering cycle repeat the process again.

This is a beautiful cultivar, 'California Gold' but the significance given to it by Mother is "Protection of the Gods"

Mother's comment is "Luminous and clear-visioned".

Protection of the Gods

A lady in Charleston, South Carolina, U.S.A. with her treasured bonsai bougainvillea.

No display is more striking than bougainvilleas cascading over a wall!