My Bougainvillea got a hair cut after surviving winter

My purple one is the least prolific bloomer. :(
Carol, sadly that's how they grow here in nature...Only the bright pink are show offs! I rarely see the other colors because everyone wants the bright pink for their homes, us included. We saw a white one growing on an arbor and I was so taken we planted it on ours. They must feed it to perform like that (It's on public land) and grow the way it does because ours is a slow grower and rarely blooms. May dig it up or start feeding it more.
 
Carol, sadly that's how they grow here in nature...Only the bright pink are show offs! I rarely see the other colors because everyone wants the bright pink for their homes, us included. We saw a white one growing on an arbor and I was so taken we planted it on ours. They must feed it to perform like that (It's on public land) and grow the way it does because ours is a slow grower and rarely blooms. May dig it up or start feeding it more.
Yep, the pink ones bloom like crazy, but the purple one has much smaller leaves, which I like. But purple being my favorite color, I want to see it bloom. :(
 
Yep, the pink ones bloom like crazy, but the purple one has much smaller leaves, which I like. But purple being my favorite color, I want to see it bloom. :(
Carol, I would try extra fertilizer on it. I'm pretty certain that's what they're doing on the white one I mentioned. It stays in constant bloom. Worth a try? Think I told you I bought a shohin purple bougie from Schley's and it's growing like mad but come spring when I repot it, that's what I'll do. Feed it extra and see if it blooms.
 
All Bougies bloom at the tips of this season's growth. Since they are vines, they don't normally have a lot of ends of canes. In fact, they would be perfectly happy to have only one or two bull canes that grow like mad covering a lot of distance with a thick stem. That doesn't suit our fancy in a pot, so we clip the canes when they get too long by our standards. The normal growth pattern is for one leader to begin to extend. If allowed to grow normally it will extend until it is some length, and then leaders develop along that cane and begin to extend, too. At about the same time another leader somewhere else goes next, ad infinitum. The length of the stem is more a function of time than length attained. Outdoors in perfect conditions that length could be ten or twenty feet. Indoors in so-so conditions that could be ten or twenty inches. To get a lot of short canes you need to clip every canes when the single leader extends to an internode length that is unacceptable to you. For me that's more than an inch. By leader, I mean the single leaf at the end of the stem. The distance between it and the second leaf is the internode length. Eventually the plant gets the message and many leaders all over the place extend simultaneously more like a bush than a vine, all with tight clusters of foliage instead of in the form of a stem with the leaves inches apart along the stem. None of the tips that you have cut off in this process will bloom, but you won't notice them.
 
All Bougies bloom at the tips of this season's growth. Since they are vines, they don't normally have a lot of ends of canes. In fact, they would be perfectly happy to have only one or two bull canes that grow like mad covering a lot of distance with a thick stem. That doesn't suit our fancy in a pot, so we clip the canes when they get too long by our standards. The normal growth pattern is for one leader to begin to extend. If allowed to grow normally it will extend until it is some length, and then leaders develop along that cane and begin to extend, too. At about the same time another leader somewhere else goes next, ad infinitum. The length of the stem is more a function of time than length attained. Outdoors in perfect conditions that length could be ten or twenty feet. Indoors in so-so conditions that could be ten or twenty inches. To get a lot of short canes you need to clip every canes when the single leader extends to an internode length that is unacceptable to you. For me that's more than an inch. By leader, I mean the single leaf at the end of the stem. The distance between it and the second leaf is the internode length. Eventually the plant gets the message and many leaders all over the place extend simultaneously more like a bush than a vine, all with tight clusters of foliage instead of in the form of a stem with the leaves inches apart along the stem. None of the tips that you have cut off in this process will bloom, but you won't notice them.
Thanks for the info!
 
It went crazy with the fall bloom. I let it grow freely this year for trunk development. The trunk responds well to all this growth.
8938FA4F-3EAA-45BF-BF7F-A589C48132D4.jpeg
 
My bougie got another severe haircut today.
BeforeIMG_2622.jpeg

After
IMG_2623.jpeg
 
Just curious, my understanding of bougainvillea is that they are very particular when it comes to pot size. As in pot up one size at a time and treat the roots like a newborn baby. Im on the suncoast of Florida 9b. Mine have been rocking for while now. Just wondering if you could shed some light on pot size and root work.
Not really however they will bloom more when roots are restricted just a bit. You can hack the crap out of the roots taking as much as 100% if you like. The key is timing. Summer when actively growing is the key.
 
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