It is undoubtedly the highlight of every bougainvillea cultivator: the breathtaking flower. When you can expect the color spectacle and how you can help a little, actually only requires a few basic knowledge and small tricks.
The bougainvillea blooms several times
When the bougainvillea blooms
The bougainvillea is known to come from subtropical South America and is therefore used to alternating dry and rainy seasons. Apart from the light, the formation of its flowers depends heavily on the amount of water it gets. If it has enough light - in our latitudes over the summer - it develops several flowering phases, which are based on the one hand on the water supply and on the other hand on the general nutrient supply.
The characteristics of the bougainvillea flower:
- several flowering phases during the sunny half of the year
- strongly dependent on the nutrient and water supply
What comes out of it
You can look forward to several blooms throughout the growing season. You can generally promote this through good overall plant care - mineral-rich, peat-free substrate with good drainage, e.g. through lava granules, (13.99€) careful watering practice and of course a warm location in full sun. By administering special flowering tub plant fertilizer, you can stimulate flowering from the fully developed vegetation phase.
Tricks for more flowering
A simple trick how you can tease out a flower is a short drainage and then intensive watering. This is how you fool the bougainvillea into a dry season and a subsequent rainy season, as it is known from its homeland. Of course, the dry phase must not last too long - at the latest when the plant begins to drop its leaves, you have to quench the bougainvillea's thirst.
Also, by being a little stingy with the pot size, you can encourage the bougainvillea to flower more. Instead of focusing on root formation and growth, it then concentrates more on pollination advertising - i.e. flower formation.