Bougainvillea Bougainvillea A love blog about bougainvillea.

Vera Deep Purple P.P. #10950 is a patented variety from Europe that is an exquisite neon fuchsia color. It’s unlike any bougainvillea you’ve ever seen - you have to see it to believe it! Best of all, it’s thorn-less and dwarf! Bracts are compact, and grow in a torch-like effect. Stunning as a mass-planting for bougainvillea ground-cover.

What do Penn State football games & Miss Alice have in common?



Miss Alice and Penn State football games are well known for their ability to "white out".  Although, Penn State usually reserves its white-outs for the Ohio State Buckeyes, Miss Alice has no reservations.

Miss Alice is hands-down, one of our personal favorites. How often do you see the crisp and clean feeling of white bracts in landscaping? Not to often... picture a community entrance engulfed with Miss Alice; breath-taking.

She’s a giant-bract (meaning the white, flowering part is very large compared to other bougainvillea bracts), semi-dwarf, thorn-less (sort-of) variety due to her compact, slow-growing habit, and extremely low thorn count.

Pure white bracts pour out and can be enjoyed year-round, and can be maintained to stay bushy and low to the ground.  Her bright white bracts grow in large clusters and are very large, long, and elliptic.  Leaves are medium to dark green, long, and tapering to a point.

At full maturity, she's 2-3’ tall and wide. Although you can prune her to stay small and compact.

Miss Alice is a great candidate for xeriscaping, as with most bougainvillea variety, she requires minimal water once established. She's evergreen and flourishes year-round in the Southeastern U.S.

Want an explosive color? Miami Pink-it.  
Want eye-catching vibrance? Miami Pink-it.



Miami Pink is a vigorous grower with deep hot pink bracts.  It's leaves are mid to dark green and ovate.

Because of its vigorous growth, its best suited for use with trellis, and also in standard-form.  With periodic pruning, this variety can be trained into bush and hanging baskets.

When it's mature, it can grow to 20-30’ tall X 6-9’ wide. However, you can prune to keep it smaller.

After each blooming cycle (approximately every 4-6 weeks), trim or pinch the soft tips of young plants stems to encourage new growth. Pinching means removing the growing tip.  This will create multiple offshoots, thicken the plant’s appearance, and yield a more colorful bougainvillea.

In the Southeastern U.S., Miami Pink flowers most heavily from October through June, but can flower sporadically year-round if dry conditions exist.  Evergreen.

One thing we should never take for granted is that a garden keeps growing. While current dry climatic conditions may restrict some garden tasks, life in a garden goes on. And so our gardens call us to continue, as there is still so much we need to do.
l Take steps to save your most valued plants. Be they gifts from friends and relatives, collectable rarities, or your favourite flowers, etc, you may consider moving them to pots, or giving them preferential mulching and watering to survive.

l Insert watering tubes next to important shrubs. These can be made from two litre cold drink bottles or sawn-off sections of PVC pipe. Water poured down the watering tubes reaches the root zone without running away from the plant.

l By pruning or lightly trimming shrubs and fillers, you regain a balanced ratio between roots and foliage. Less water will be needed for a slightly smaller plant. Don’t cut back too much, as this will stimulate too much new growth (which requires more water).
l Keep your plants in good condition. It is still the growing season, so you should still be feeding. Starving plants will be under even more stress, which makes them susceptible to diseases. Make use of slow release fertilisers like Bounceback, Sudden Impact, organic 3:1:5 or chemical 3:1:5 (26) SR. Bonemeal is a great fertiliser for hardening off plants, without making them shoot out too much. You can also use soluble fertilisers such as Seagro or Nitrosol, which are not as strong as standard granular feeds.

l Cover large tracts of exposed soil in beds. Exposure to wind, and the baking effect of sun damages surface roots, and leads to evaporation of valuable water. Plant water- wise ground covers such as portulaca, verbena, aptenia or felicia close together, to help shade and shelter the soil around your plants. Alternatively, make use of a thick mulch of bark chips, gravel, pine needles or dry grass clippings to cover exposed soil.
l Construct ridges, rises and berms around plants or whole beds to trap water around your plants. These “dams” encourage water to soak into the soil directly around the roots.

l Add some joy to life in your garden. A small pot on the patio or at the front door is easy to maintain. Use some water-wise flowering plants to colour your life.

Pelargoniums, bougainvillea and lavender will bring a smile back to your garden.

Exotic orchids, the neon Bougainvillea and Rex Begonias are certain to brighten winter days

Don't despair if your green thumb turns a nasty shade of black when it comes to caring for indoor plants. You will be gratified to know that it's often not your fault -- it's more likely the tricky requirements of the plant or the inhospitable winter conditions within a Canadian house that cause your plants to shrivel and die.

Then again, it could be your fault because the natural tendency is to overwater and drown unhappy plants. Like people, plants' roots that are constantly wet or bone-dry either get mouldy and rot or become dehydrated and shut down.

Which means if you are a cursory gardener then many but, happily, not all indoor plants are for you.

You may already know that the most seductive flowering plants, including gardenias, exotic orchids (like the Lady slipper or Cattleya varieties), azaleas, hibiscus, oleander, mandevilla and bougainvillea need experienced and dedicated care.

Some need very consistent conditions. Gardenias are famous for dropping their buds and flowers if temperatures fluctuate and azaleas will droop and sulk almost immediately if inadvertently exposed to direct sun. Others need brutal mid-winter haircuts. All flowering tropical plants cannot sustain their summer abundance through our meagre indoor winters, while all need owners who are not faint of heart when it comes to insects, especially the most common of sunny pests -- spider mites and scales.

But the news is not all bad. The tropical plant world has responded to the needs of indoor gardeners by producing more plants with outstanding foliage, indestructible constitutions and reliable blossoms.

Flowering plants, including clivia, streptocarpus, the phalaeonopsis orchid, hoya and stephanotis, citrus plants and the ubiquitous African violet are all easy to care for and relatively dependable bloomers.

While the African violet, streptocarpus and phalaeonopsis will flower for relatively long periods of time throughout the year, others are less productive, but still spectacular.

The clivia (named after Lady Clive, so pronounced clive-ia) has big strappy leaves that give way to one or more single stems that bear a cluster of striking orange blooms once a year. And if you ever see a yellow one, grab it -- it's very rare and as beautiful as it is expensive. This plant likes to be root-bound, so don't repot it. And when you do, only move to a slightly larger pot, keeping it there until the container is about to bust.

The streptocarpus has soft, fuzzy leaves, much like its relative the African violet, with flowers that come in various colours, including dark purple, blue and pink. In a bright window, the dancing, orchid-like blooms are held high above its arching leaves and flowering seems to go on and on. If you keep it deadheaded, carefully watered (avoid the leaves and water from below) and moderately fertilized, I guarantee that this gem will become one of your favourites.

Some of the newest and most interesting foliage plants on the market include the newer forms of philodendron, including autumn (copper new leaves with red stems) or moonlight (chartreuse young leaves that darken to green as they mature). Philodendrons are great low-light plants, requiring some support as they grow vertically and regular wiping to keep their broad leaves shiny.

If you love chartreuse foliage, you could also try the so-called neon pothos. This is a trailing plant very similar in form to the philodendron, but would rather trail than climb. It has bright neon yellow leaves and will thrive under the most inhospitable of conditions and care. If you love the golden sweet potato vine, and grow it as an annual, this tropical version of summer sunshine is for you.

My personal favourites among easy-to-grow indoor plants are rex begonias. Unlike the tuberous or fibrous begonias, that are grown mainly for their colourful flowers. The rex varieties are superstars because of the kaleidoscopic colours of their leaves.

With names like escargot or chocolate cream, you'd think they were good enough to eat. All you need is moderate light (an east or north window; no direct sun please), some humidity (try a humidifier or place your pot on a pebble tray -- a saucer with a layer of pebbles that acts to raise your pot above a constant supply of evaporating water) and good air circulation to avoid mildew. You have instant colour in the middle of the winter blahs.