Flower gardening - Bougainvillea

Preface

With its spectacular mass of brightly coloured bracts, the bougainvillea is foremost among the ornamental plants both in beauty and utility, particularly in the gardens of tropics and subtropics; It is a hardy shrub that can grow under different types of soil and climatic conditions. The colour of the bracts are innumerable and they present a beautiful look to the whole background with very little resource requirements from outside. This booklet explains about its varieties and cultural practices.

Dr. K. T. Chandy, Agricultural & Environmental Education

I. Introduction

Bougainvillea is a very common ornamental plant grown almost all over the world in tropical and subtropical gardens. It is grown as a shrub as well as a climber. Where it is grown in controlled conditions by trimming and training it grows like a shrub, When it is allowed to climb over a tree or spread over a fence or over a rolling landscape or rocky surface it grows like a climber or creeper.

Basically it is a subtropical plant. Easy to propagate and grow, free of diseases, stunning in its variety of colours, and flowering for at least 9 months in a year are some of the important characteristics which bring it into the forefront of all other ornamental plants. It can be grown in the poorest of the poor soil under dry and drought conditions. It can be trimmed and trained into any shape and size. A wide variety of colours are available to create an idyllic scene over a land scape or on the background of a garden.

Being a native of south America bougainvillea was discovered in 18th century by a French botanist Commerson in Brazil who named it after Louis Antonine de Bougainvillea, the French navigator with whom he went on a voyage round the world during 1766-69. In India B.spectabilis was the first species to be introduced from Europe in 1860.

It belongs to the family Nyctaginaceae which has ten species, hut only three species B, spectabilis, B. glabra and B. peruiana are horticulturally important. Most of the garden cultivars of hougainvilleas have arisen by hybridization and mutation among these three basic species mentioned above.