Colourful bougainvillea adds grace

by Elizabeth Shaheen
One of the most opulent plants you can grow in your Bahrain garden would be the bougainvillea, to wipe your eye with its vivaciously colourful bracts. This beauty is native to the tropical and subtropical regions of South America from Brazil west to Peru and south to southern Argentina.

It is a small genus of around 14 species of spiny shrubs, trees and vines, although different authors report from four to 18 species in the genus.

Bougainvillea was named in honour of Louis Antoine Bougainville, the first Frenchman to cross the Pacific.

He was aide-de-camp to General Montcalm in the French and Indian Wars. In 1768, after the fall of the French empire in Canada, he sailed with the King’s botanist Philibert Commerson on a voyage of discovery.

Whilst in Brazil, Commerson discovered a plant and named it after Bougainville. They introduced it to the South Pacific and their final destination, France, as a “stove plant”, which means that it was nurtured indoors in the winter and kept near the warmth of a stove.

The fact that they are so abundant in the South Pacific, has led many to believe that this is their natural domicile rather than South America.

Small, tubular, ephemeral flowers are borne in clusters at the terminal of the stems. They are cradled within the radiantly coloured bracts of a thin papery texture that are long lasting.

In Bahrain, only the shrubby and twining species and their hybrids and cultivars are evident.

Their lineage stems from principally Bougainvillea spectabilis, but also Bougainvillea glabra and Bougainvillea peruviana.

To be able to distinguish one from the other would require a very trained eye, for there is little botanical distinction between them.

Bougainvilleas are most appealing when trained against a wall to make a fiery sheet of colour or left to cascade over a wall, but they are never so lovely as when they have worked their way up through a towering tree to cascade down dripping in colour.

A characteristic of all vining forms are their long and gangling, thorny canes with mostly forest-green leaves that are almost heart-shaped.

Some cultivars have foliage wonderfully marbled in vanilla-cream or frothy-white.

These have a more conservative form barely reaching a metre in height.

The more adventurous vines require, when allowed to have their way, tying to robust supports.

Even those left to draw themselves through a tree require the initial helping hand, until their thorns establish footholds.

Their salt tolerance makes them an excellent choice for seaside landscaping.

Their only drawback is that strong winds can shred their leaves, snatch their canes away from their supports and bring about an early curtain call to their florescence; but wind does no garden any favours.

There is absolutely no need to allow the plants to climb, for all forms can be beautifully trained as small, shrub-sized specimens that look truly spectacular planted in a flower border.

They provide for gorgeous hedging and they can be given a rounded form that can have a fountain effect.

Since all are terminal bloomers, simply after a flush of bracts have fallen, cut back at least one-third of the cane.

In general, I tend to remove at least two-thirds of their canes, to force a more compact form.

When it comes to colour we are spoilt for choice, for they arrive in shades of yellows, orange, magenta, purple, mauve, pink, so many tones of red and foam-white.

The double-flowered types do nothing at all to enhance the splendour of the plant added to which, they hold on to their faded bracts, which cause the plant to have a ratty appearance.

Diligent removal of the bracts is required to maintain the plant’s beauty.

When planting bougainvillea care must be taken not to disturb their roots, for they react very negatively to this, as their roots are brittle.

To avoid this, first remove the base of the pot and place it into the prepared planting hole; then cut through vertically on two opposing sides and as you cut, fill in the soil around the root-ball as the two halves are carefully removed, thus avoiding any root disturbance.

Bougainvilleas’ blooming patterns vary according to type. Some are seasonal bloomers and flower in the cooler and shorter days of late autumn, winter and early spring.

While the mainstream flower in cycles throughout the year.

Then there are those cultivars that bear fewer bracts and flower less often.

Controversy exists over whether to feed bougainvillea and this, in part, has been brought about by the misunderstanding of the variance of the different forms’ blooming patterns.

To encourage new growth, feed the plants at the end of each bloom cycle, when it would also be prudent to prune.

Bougainvilleas need sun and good drainage.

They abhor soggy conditions and they will only reward you with bloom with at least a fair degree of some sun, but the more sun the merrier they bloom.

I am totally mystified when people say they won’t grow bougainvillea in their garden because their bracts fall and make a mess.

Such gardens are usually void of any colour other than green!

Topiary is by no means my favourite art of modelling plants, but the most amazing topiaries that I have ever seen are in the beautiful gardens of the Soffitel Hotel in Hua Hin, Thailand.

One is a bougainvillea topiary of a gargantuan elephant; its underbelly provides a unique arch! Truly splendid.

Bougainvillea features in my book Tropical Trees and Shrubs of Bahrain.
Elizabeth Shaheen - GDN - 11 Feb, ‘07