Bougainvillea

From April 18, 2007 post: “The Bougainvillea is blooming in my living room”

Well, it’s starting to blooming again. This plant started life in my house as a small plant in a 3" pot. I brought it home from the Philadelphia Flower Show about 8 to 10 years ago. It is now 4 to 5 feet tall in a 15" pot.

I don’t know why it keeps growing. I put it out on the deck in the summer and feed it sometimes. It’s full of thorns and grows over the sofa and into the corner hutch. Getting it outside is a mess. It lives on a wheeled wooden caddy. I try not to get falling leaves all over the house or poke my eye out when I drag it outside. Every year I say I’m not going to bring in again. Every fall I drag it back to the living room.

I grew a cutting a few years ago. One winter the cutting got stuck behind some other house plants and I forgot to water it. End of plant.

It usually doesn’t bloom in the summer. According to Plant Answers http://www.plantanswers.com/bouganvilia.htm , it is a heavy feeder. Maybe I’ll feed it more this summer to see if I can get it to bloom outside. I'm sure it's pot bound but I’m not about to try to re-pot the monster. Maybe I won’t bring it in next fall.