Medium/Large (?) Bougie close to full-flower, want to show someone before I go outside and de-flower! (also, advice on pinching v pruning...)

[SU2]

With the coldest month now past (and next week's forecast looking great!), I've decided it's time to take a couple bougies out of their blooming-phases to get them ready for vegetative growth, before doing so I just have to share my favorite tree (generic bougie, 'pink pixie' I'd assume!) in close-to-full bloom, maybe 1/3 of the pistols have opened but I suspect many aren't going to (this tree didn't like the cold-snaps and was in full-flower then too..), so having let it mostly flower it's time to get back to growth! Ok so here he is today in full-bloom






While I know I'll be removing all the flowers, and that I'll be removing - at bare minimum - every growth-tip, what I'm still on the fence about is just how much to prune, whether it's smarter to just do a light pinching session (literally just pinching the first nodes to force budding at the tips of the shoots, thickening their branches' collars), or to do a proper hard-prune - both ways will have it back in growth-mode quickly, I guess I'm just unsure about cutting-back past foliage on a specimen that's not currently in active vegetative growth, if it were mid-summer I could cut it back like this:




but worry that, since it's *not* in active-growth mode, that if I were to hard-prune it like that ^ that I'd be risking some of my 'little nubs' / short lignified shoots *not* putting out buds....would really suck to lose limbs I'd grown-out where I wanted them, in fact there's a little branch (~2.5" long) that was hard-pruned in fall that never re-budded, haven't skinned it to check the xylem to see if it's alive/dormant because I don't want to damage any epicormal buds that I hope are there just waiting for summer!

On a bunch of my smaller, far less developed bougies (that were flowering) I simply removed all flowers and pinched the tips, they're all already putting out ~2-4 new shoots from the first nodes at the tops of the pinched-tips (the idea being that the new growth-flush will force the collars to thicken- something that'd take *much* longer if I hard-pruned....hmmmm, maybe that in and of itself is reason to try grow-out these shoots longer before doing a hard-prune like pic#2, any & all thoughts/advice/suggestions on this would be HUGELY appreciated!!! For now I'll just be removing the flowers w/ scissors, leaving growth-tips intact, til I can decide whether this is ready for pinching or hard-pruning! (or, and I doubt it but may as well ask- a 3rd option would be a medium-pruning, but so far as I know that's more of a 'refinement' thing and I'm guessing this specimen isn't far-enough along yet, that right now it's all about branch-girth for the first few 'splits' in ramification off of the 2 main trunks but maybe I'm wrong, maybe cutting them halfway-back would be a viable approach, the new flush would kick-in fast and it wouldn't take nearly as long for the supporting-branches' collars to start growing again, not as long as if I'd hard-pruned all the way back to a few inches)

 

[Random User]

Without having to re-write heaps of info, I'll just direct you to a thread that I started called "Are you a bouger"... the thing(s) that I found effective are written in posting #61 (page 4). The only thing that isn't in there (I think) is that I have it on a 12/12 light cycle.

HOWEVER, I am in the Canadian Prairies and my boug is obviously indoors with total climate control.

I'd be interested to see if your boug reacts the same way mine did with ph control and pinching the bracts. Mine has yet to back-bud on the oldest growth, but I'm being patient because the longer it stays in this veg state, (I'm hoping) the better the odds are that it will build-up energy reserves to push that old growth; or so I am hoping.

Seeing that you are in FL, have you looked at this man's page?

https://adamaskwhy.com/?s=bougainvillea

I think effectiveness of any approach largely depends on zone and climate... he is in FL too. (If I remember correctly, I think you're in the wrong month for the kind of aggressive trimming he recommended... mid-summer I believe.)

I like your boug... very nice.

 

[SU2]

Without having to re-write heaps of info, I'll just direct you to a thread that I started called "Are you a bouger"... the thing(s) that I found effective are written in posting #61 (page 4). The only thing that isn't in there (I think) is that I have it on a 12/12 light cycle.

HOWEVER, I am in the Canadian Prairies and my boug is obviously indoors with total climate control.

I'd be interested to see if your boug reacts the same way mine did with ph control and pinching the bracts. Mine has yet to back-bud on the oldest growth, but I'm being patient because the longer it stays in this veg state, (I'm hoping) the better the odds are that it will build-up energy reserves to push that old growth; or so I am hoping.

Seeing that you are in FL, have you looked at this man's page?

https://adamaskwhy.com/?s=bougainvillea

I think effectiveness of any approach largely depends on zone and climate... he is in FL too. (If I remember correctly, I think you're in the wrong month for the kind of aggressive trimming he recommended... mid-summer I believe.)

I like your boug... very nice.

Thanks

And yeah Adam is awesome I've read everything he's written (have met him at a workshop he was giving actually ), his blog is what got me into bonsai!

WRT the comment you mention in that thread, am a bit confused- you're talking about 'pinching bracts once they show color'? They come out w/ color... do you mean you let them develop a bit? When it's a time of year that they could be actively growing, and I know they're about to flower, I'll always pinch-off the top couple inches of all shoots, to stop the flowering before it starts- have always wondered whether there was any cost to 'neutering' the thing regularly like that (so far I've found nothing to suggest there is)

The pH thing worried me, I have a couple very chloritic bougies (which is weird, as I've got ~40 bougies and only 2 are chloritic, they all get the same basic treatment, very odd!) and figured "has to be either Fe or Mg+", so I started w/ iron but that made no difference....I then tried Epsom Salts (10% magnesium, 13% sulfur- seems like the perfect adjunct to a bougie's fert regimen, I've begun using it on days that I don't use fertilizer, as magnesium-absorption is impeded by lots of stuff, so am now doing waterings on a 3-type rotation- fertilizer, water, epsom, then repeat!), still no visible difference but only began the epsom salts a week ago (though they should've worked a lot quicker is my understanding..) So far as pH, I made a thread on it recently as I was wanting to test mine, the overwhelming consensus was "don't worry about it"...

 

[SU2]

Without having to re-write heaps of info, I'll just direct you to a thread that I started called "Are you a bouger"... the thing(s) that I found effective are written in posting #61 (page 4). The only thing that isn't in there (I think) is that I have it on a 12/12 light cycle.

So I couldn't help reading more of that thread, I did read that article (and was just dumbfounded at how many parts of that article are lifted, word-for-word, into other sites' "bougainvillea write-ups", there were so many damn sentences that I could finish just after reading the first third lol) but started reading the thread and found a passage from you that hit me in the context of how to prune my bougie right now:

"(The other option was wait until spring, with the possibility of setting them back through May/June)"

I think that ^ is solid reasoning to do a hard-prune right now - we're about to start hitting our good growing-period and right now my goal is to simply increase branch-girth (not going for refinement yet, don't think any of my specimen are close to ready!), am thinking that, if hard-pruned now, it'd begin back-budding slower than in-summer *but*, by the time the good growth-period has started, the shoots would be developed and poised to take-off!! I'd then revert to just soft-pruning/pinching throughout the growing season (as growth slows and/or I suspect a flowering-phase is trying to start, just prune hard enough to quell the flowering and force it back into vegetative growth!)

 

[Random User]

Thanks

And yeah Adam is awesome I've read everything he's written (have met him at a workshop he was giving actually ), his blog is what got me into bonsai!

WRT the comment you mention in that thread, am a bit confused- you're talking about 'pinching bracts once they show color'? They come out w/ color... do you mean you let them develop a bit? When it's a time of year that they could be actively growing, and I know they're about to flower, I'll always pinch-off the top couple inches of all shoots, to stop the flowering before it starts- have always wondered whether there was any cost to 'neutering' the thing regularly like that (so far I've found nothing to suggest there is)

The pH thing worried me, I have a couple very chloritic bougies (which is weird, as I've got ~40 bougies and only 2 are chloritic, they all get the same basic treatment, very odd!) and figured "has to be either Fe or Mg+", so I started w/ iron but that made no difference....I then tried Epsom Salts (10% magnesium, 13% sulfur- seems like the perfect adjunct to a bougie's fert regimen, I've begun using it on days that I don't use fertilizer, as magnesium-absorption is impeded by lots of stuff, so am now doing waterings on a 3-type rotation- fertilizer, water, epsom, then repeat!), still no visible difference but only began the epsom salts a week ago (though they should've worked a lot quicker is my understanding..) So far as pH, I made a thread on it recently as I was wanting to test mine, the overwhelming consensus was "don't worry about it"...

As soon as I can se that they are going to develop into bracts, instead of true leaves, I pinch them off. But, only the bracts and beginnings of flowers, no true leaves. I haven't been pinching back any shoots.

I would check the ph of your water first off, then add your fert (assuming that your using chemical ferts) and re-check your ph. If your not 5.5-6 re-adjust it. If your way off (like 7-8) you could lower the ph of your waterings well below the 5.5-6 until your soil is more balanced.

You're spraying the epsom salts on the leaves?... you didn't say how you're applying it.

 

[Random User]

So I couldn't help reading more of that thread, I did read that article (and was just dumbfounded at how many parts of that article are lifted, word-for-word, into other sites' "bougainvillea write-ups", there were so many damn sentences that I could finish just after reading the first third lol) but started reading the thread and found a passage from you that hit me in the context of how to prune my bougie right now:

I think that ^ is solid reasoning to do a hard-prune right now - we're about to start hitting our good growing-period and right now my goal is to simply increase branch-girth (not going for refinement yet, don't think any of my specimen are close to ready!), am thinking that, if hard-pruned now, it'd begin back-budding slower than in-summer *but*, by the time the good growth-period has started, the shoots would be developed and poised to take-off!! I'd then revert to just soft-pruning/pinching throughout the growing season (as growth slows and/or I suspect a flowering-phase is trying to start, just prune hard enough to quell the flowering and force it back into vegetative growth!)

Ummm, I don't think your reasoning is correct (assuming that I'm understanding you correctly). In order to thicken your branches, you let those leaders run. Cut back when your (desired) branches are the thickness you want them to be. The rule of thumb on a tree is when they are about 2/3's the thickness of the desired finished thickness (if that makes sense to you). Whether this rule applies to bougs would be a question better suited for someone more experienced with them than I am.

 

[Random User]

Another question that I can't answer (and would be better answered by someone more experienced than myself), is: looking at your tree and how well it back-budded near the wounds up top... I wonder if you couldn't get the boug to heal those wounds over. To my understanding, that doesn't happen with bougainvilleas, but it would be cool if it did for your tree. (Because the wounds aren't really big like some I've seen.)

I'll make an all-encompassing comment about your tree and my perception of your expectations for it... please don't take it has a huge criticism, but I wonder if other people wouldn't have the same thoughts/impression.

That is: I get the impression that you "want a well developed tree as soon as possible." My feeling is that you're possibly going to make some decisions that will ultimately cause your goal to be pushed further away from you, rather than bringing it closer.

You have a really nice looking tree there, IMHO, what you need to do is let those leaders run at least for another year... possibly cull one or two as the summer progresses. If it appears that the wounds are going to heal over, I'd for sure let them run.

 

[Carol 83]

I really like your tree in the first post here, very pretty. I notice you talk a lot about keeping them in vegetative growth and preventing them from blooming. I understand you want to build branches, girth, etc. But, and I'm not trying to be a smartass, why have all those bougies , if you're not going to enjoy the blooms, their primary attribute? I know you're trying to build the tree, but to me, the flowers are the reward of growing them. Maybe @milehigh_7 will chime in with some pruning advice for you. All of my best ones came from him.

 

[Random User]

http://www.askmar.com/Bougainvilleas/Bougainvilleas.pdf

 

[milehigh_7]

Thanks

So far as pH, I made a thread on it recently as I was wanting to test mine, the overwhelming consensus was "don't worry about it"...

A few notes so far:
1) That's not a Pink Pixie.
2) Bougs need a pH of 5.5-6.5 or they will not thrive period. If a person tells you not to worry about pH, stop listening to them about anything.
3) The minerals they need will not even be available to the plant if your pH is above 7.5.
3) Typically a real hard prune should happen just before summer growth hits (say when nights are reliably over 60F).
4) Plan out how you want your finished tree to look and work it toward that end. If you allow your boug to run, you will have to cut a large branch later which will necessitate carving contrary to popular belief, they do heal just VERY slowly and in Florida, you will have to keep it from rotting while it does.
5) They like to be root bound so keep them in a smaller pot than you would other trees.
6) If you are going to do root work, do it during the hottest days of the year and defoliate when you do.

 

[milehigh_7]

This is a pink pixie branch (alas got a little cold damage ) see how tight the nodes are? Pink pixie, torch glow and bankok red grow this way.

 

[milehigh_7]

As far as fertilizing and nutrients, you would likely be time and money ahead just to get some Bougain as it has all the minerals and everything is in the right ratios. If you need to lower your pH simply sprinkle some elemental sulfur on every few months. The right product will look like little yellow beads.

As a side: I have a theory that you should not use peroxide and sulfur at the same time because the sulfur takes hydrogen from water and makes a weak sulfuric acid. I have not tested it but I would be worried what would happen with hydrogen peroxide. Maybe somebody that's better at chemistry than me will chime in.

 

[milehigh_7]

I posted this up on the bouger thread but it is really valuable info. (Another tree you can't ignore this on is Liquidambar styraciflua)

 

[Random User]

"I have a theory that you should not use peroxide and sulfur at the same time because the sulfur takes hydrogen from water and makes a weak sulfuric acid."

Little doubt it would make sulphuric acid... but like you said, the strength would vary depending on the amounts applied.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

"I have a theory that you should not use peroxide and sulfur at the same time because the sulfur takes hydrogen from water and makes a weak sulfuric acid."

Little doubt it would make sulphuric acid... but like you said, the strength would vary depending on the amounts applied.

Actually more likely to make weak blend of sulfonic and sulfuric acid. The concentration would be low and it would quickly dissipate. I would not worry at all about using peroxide on a tree that has elemental sulfur supplement in the potting media. The risk is minimal.

 

[milehigh_7]

Actually more likely to make weak blend of sulfonic and sulfuric acid. The concentration would be low and it would quickly dissipate. I would not worry at all about using peroxide on a tree that has elemental sulfur supplement in the potting media. The risk is minimal.

Like I said it was just a passing thought once I figured out how sulfur lowers pH. Thanks, @Leo in N E Illinois you put my mind at ease a bit.

 

[SU2]

Actually more likely to make weak blend of sulfonic and sulfuric acid. The concentration would be low and it would quickly dissipate. I would not worry at all about using peroxide on a tree that has elemental sulfur supplement in the potting media. The risk is minimal.

Leo, apologies for the delayed reply on this (have had a browser w/ these tabs open for weeks!), but up-thread post #10 I'm being told pH absolutely matters and it's significant, however I'd already written-off pH after you replied to my pH thread saying that measuring pH is essentially a fool's errand for at-home hobbyists, I've got 2 posters here telling me different things and I've found both of you to be very spot-on in all other posts so am at a loss here.. maybe the answer is that I should just 'aim' for acidity in my bougies, while knowing I'll never be able to legitimately test them / know what their true pH is?

My water is almost 8pH (7.98...makes me think it was 8/8+ and they fuzzed #'s to get it to come in under the 8.0 mark!), so maybe I should just use a high-dose Epsom Salts treatment as part of my fertilization schedule to get pH down? @milehigh_7 I'd love to know just how I should approach pH, am using regular Miracle Gro 24-8-16 (1tbsp/gallon twice weekly) as well as epsom salts (~1/4tsp/gallon, twice weekly), I can't help but feel that simply using a higher amount of Epsom Salt (13% Sulfur/10% Magnesium) would be smart but I've no idea what proper long-term dosing is so have just been playing it safe w/ that incredibly low, frequent dosage that works out to 0.5tsp/gal every week (seems very low, just unsure how high I should have it...it seems the smartest way to boost acidity/drop pH in a useful manner (because sulfur & Mg+ are very useful micro's to go alongside the bare-bones miracle-gro 24-8-16), just don't know how much I should use if doing so for that purpose!))

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

Leo, apologies for the delayed reply on this (have had a browser w/ these tabs open for weeks!), but up-thread post #10 I'm being told pH absolutely matters and it's significant, however I'd already written-off pH after you replied to my pH thread saying that measuring pH is essentially a fool's errand for at-home hobbyists, I've got 2 posters here telling me different things and I've found both of you to be very spot-on in all other posts so am at a loss here.. maybe the answer is that I should just 'aim' for acidity in my bougies, while knowing I'll never be able to legitimately test them / know what their true pH is?

My water is almost 8pH (7.98...makes me think it was 8/8+ and they fuzzed #'s to get it to come in under the 8.0 mark!), so maybe I should just use a high-dose Epsom Salts treatment as part of my fertilization schedule to get pH down? @milehigh_7 I'd love to know just how I should approach pH, am using regular Miracle Gro 24-8-16 (1tbsp/gallon twice weekly) as well as epsom salts (~1/4tsp/gallon, twice weekly), I can't help but feel that simply using a higher amount of Epsom Salt (13% Sulfur/10% Magnesium) would be smart but I've no idea what proper long-term dosing is so have just been playing it safe w/ that incredibly low, frequent dosage that works out to 0.5tsp/gal every week (seems very low, just unsure how high I should have it...it seems the smartest way to boost acidity/drop pH in a useful manner (because sulfur & Mg+ are very useful micro's to go alongside the bare-bones miracle-gro 24-8-16), just don't know how much I should use if doing so for that purpose!))

You can answer this question, by visiting any grower of bougies in your area, on your same municipal water system. Ask them what they do about pH. Then look at their bougies. If they have healthy bougies, follow their advise, if you don't like the way their trees looks, do not do what they do. It doesn't have to be a bonsai grower, a nursery with bougies in pots will do

I think you will find people with good looking bougies mostly don't worry much about pH.

Setting up with a nice bonsai potting media with a good amount of composted bark, really goes a long way to compensate for municipal water problems.

 

[SU2]

You can answer this question, by visiting any grower of bougies in your area, on your same municipal water system. Ask them what they do about pH. Then look at their bougies. If they have healthy bougies, follow their advise, if you don't like the way their trees looks, do not do what they do. It doesn't have to be a bonsai grower, a nursery with bougies in pots will do

I hate to reply how I'm going to right now because I worry it'll be taken the wrong way, but I really don't think this approach would help me very much...aside from not knowing any places to go around checking (to get a decent sampling going), the reality is there are sooo many variables that, simply because someone's bougies look good, it's not accurate to turn around and say "therefore their pH is the optimal pH" You can certainly have bougies in poor pH that look better than bougies with perfect pH, if the other variables (sunlight, moisture, etc etc) were manipulated enough....I guess I just don't believe that, if I truly tried this in earnest, that I'd get anything useful out of it, too many confounding variables to effect it :/

I think you will find people with good looking bougies mostly don't worry much about pH.

Again it's just that there's so many other variables that effect it - an analogy to this type of approach would be "if you want to get muscular, ask muscular people what they do", a common enough thing, but ultimately a pointless act because quite often you'll get rubbish answers (ie "I eat tons of protein", says the person who's muscular due to genetics. You begin eating tons of protein but don't get bigger - there were other variables they didn't tell you or weren't even aware of themselves) I can't find the post right now but am so sure it was you that said something to the effect that "people are still using old-school fertilizer mixtures and, while they may be able to get it to work, it's just not optimal".....for that same reasoning, I'd like to approach pH properly because I know my water's high pH has some effect (chloritic bougies despite ample nutrients, including iron/mg+ individual ferts, applied at different times so no competition for absorption), I know that bougies are especially wanting of lower pH and my water is quite high at ~8pH so it just seems a foregone conclusion for me that I should always choose the more acidic approach anytime I can whether it's substrate / fertilization / additives (>90% of my collection is bougainvillea which is why this is something I really want to figure out, @milehigh_7 and others in the "are you a bouger" thread seem to have had practical, real-world results w/ their bougies due to pH control and w/ my chloritic bougies I can't help but feel I would too)

You said to me in another post that "Even if you have nutrient deficiency symptoms, the solution is likely nothing to do with pH", this is something I'm still having trouble taking-in...for instance, I had some bougies that were in pure perlite, they needed a *lot* more water than the rest of my garden because of the poor substrate choice, anyways I had multiple bougs that got very bad chlorosis in the pure-perlite mixes, wouldn't that be a text-book case of the solution being pH? In that, the excessive 7.98pH water being pushed through those containers made it so that far less iron was able to be taken-in by the bougies, resulting in iron-deficiency illustrated by chlorosis - maybe I'm off-base here? From everything I can gather though it seems that chlorosis was due to iron deficiency due to too-high a pH - the chloritic bougies only had that 1 difference from the others, they got more plain tap-water, but not extra fertilizer/epsom/etc, so (from what I can see!) it stands to reason that it was 'nutrient lock-out' (iron, specifically) that was the cause and was due entirely to pH.

Setting up with a nice bonsai potting media with a good amount of composted bark, really goes a long way to compensate for municipal water problems.

Recently I potted some collected BC's and didn't realize I needed to use composted bark, subsequently I tried finding it and couldn't....can I make it myself from a bag of regular pine-bark-mulch?
I'm planning to start using more sphagnum in my mixes because of its acidity (will use a little less DE / more perlite to compensate for its addition), need to find a pH list/index for substrate aggregates so I can plan the most acidic substrates - if I'm unable to properly test pH myself, but I know that my tap-water is undesirably high, I can't help but to think that I should aim for the most acidic substrates available, that I should add extra sulfur, etc etc

Sorry for so much in 1 post, have been trying to wrap my head around all this and really appreciate all you've told me so far, I don't want to seem as if I think altering pH is the end-all secret for my trees or something, it's nothing more than being in a situation of having all acid-loving plants while having basic 7.98pH water, I just expect that it's prudent to base things around that!

Thanks again for all the information & patience with me here, truly appreciated!! (I probably read your replies 2-4x if not more, am constantly going-over my threads til I'm comfortable enough that I feel I could explain them to someone else!)

[in another thread you'd mentioned a mini-book on alkalinity you'd written/posted, would hugely appreciate a link or the title of it so I can learn more! I've got a garden of mostly-bougainvilleas (acid-loving), with tap-water that's 7.98, so I really do believe that "working towards acidity" / caring about pH will matter, and know I can't do much as far as testing (ie it's too inaccurate to be of use) so am just aiming to add more acidic components to substrates, to use products w/ more sulfur (have been steadily increasing my epsom salt rate in my water), just want to at least be closer to 7/neutral than the ~8pH of my tap-water!]

 

[SU2]

@Leo in N E Illinois what are your thoughts on my Epsom Salt usage? I just setup a thread on an 'ask chemistry' url to ask how much effect Epsom Salts would have on pH, like xTBSP into a gallon changes the pH by y, so hopefully I'll get a hard # (think that'd be easy for a chemistry person, it should be basic maths if you know the formulas!), but I was drawn to including it in my fertilizer regimen initially due to its Magnesium content (10%), I just thought the Sulfur (13%) was a bonus, only recently did I start thinking of it in terms of lowering pH. Am unsure how much sulfur is ok to use, and how much is needed to impact pH in any substantial way, so til I learn more I've been playing it safe and dosing the trees at what works-out to ~1/2TSP/gal weekly (doing 1/4tsp/gal every third day), my intuition is that the dosage is WAY too-low, for instance yesterday was a regular fertilizer day and I did the math on it in relation to pre-mixed formulas, I saw that 5% magnesium is what 'Bougain' fertilizer uses so if I were to use epsom to mimic that I'd be using 1/2TBSP/gal, giving me 5% magnesium and 6.5% sulfur on top of my miracle-gro.

I'm curious at the lack of use of epsom salt in gardening in general TBH, with it being so cheap, with magnesium&sulfur being of such benefit - and being absent from so many commercial formulations - I'd have expected epsom salt use to be far more popular! Very curious why it's not because from where I'm sitting it's a fantastic additive to (commonly incomplete)fertilizer formulas, yet I seldom see someone mention using it..