Some color on my bougie

Steve C

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zIT6l7.jpg


Bougie is finally showing some summer color bracts now the past couple weeks.
 

Mayank

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Ours just doesn't flower. What gives? Deep pot, high P fertilizer, full sun 12 hours plus every day... It flowered once in three years and just one new branch in one spot. What's your secret?
 

Carol 83

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Ours just doesn't flower. What gives? Deep pot, high P fertilizer, full sun 12 hours plus every day... It flowered once in three years and just one new branch in one spot. What's your secret?
Try some Bougain or Miracle-gro bloom booster. Let it dry out enough to wilt a bit then water. Don't pinch the new growing tips, that's where they will flower. Just a few suggestions.
 

Steve C

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Bougies are sun lovers and the bracts like to push color better if you let them dry out a bit. So if you have it in direct sun and let it get a bit dry between watering that will help it to start coloring up better for you.
 

bonsaichile

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Ours just doesn't flower. What gives? Deep pot, high P fertilizer, full sun 12 hours plus every day... It flowered once in three years and just one new branch in one spot. What's your secret?
maybe you a are watering too much? they like to be dry-ish. Also, they only flower from new growth. Prune more often and see if it responds to that?
 

Mayank

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So I compared bougain to miracle gro bloom booster and bougain is 6-8-10 and bloom booster is 10-52-10 which is super different! I thought larger middle number but 52?!
Also bougain has larger K number. I'm confused as to which one to try ☹️
 

Steve C

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I have used both Bougian and Miracle grow. The MG I use is not the bloom booster though, I'll have to look and see what one it actually is. Last year I used Bougain and this year I am using miracle grow. I do think last year it had more color than it does this year, but that could just be a coincidence and might not be because of the bougain. Only reason I didn't use bougain this year is because you have to order it and its so much more expensive than other stuff I wanted to see how it did with a different brand. If you don't mind paying a bit more and ordering online, then I'd say to get the bougain.
 

Mayank

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So ours never flowered for four years. Tried starving it, neglecting it, full sun of course. Anyway this year I got miracle gro bloom booster and watered it with water bluer than antifreeze😄. Popped out flowers!! Yay!!!
 

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Forsoothe!

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Doesn't look like a Bougie to me. I have several, and none with brown bark and your leaves have a different, translucent look. Are you absolutely sure this is a Bougie? They come from everywhere around the world along the equator, so anything's possible.

They bloom from the tips of a prior growth period's branch ends, so you need to let it go nuts and put out bull canes, then bloom on those and then cut it back hard enough to accommodate the next growing session's growth. That is, cut back to where it will look nice and then cut back beyond that to accommodate anticipated growth so that it will look nice after it grows back. After that initial "training", it will put out one bull cane at a time. You'll see a bud begin to expand as a cluster of leaves and lengthen. It will inflate the first pair of leaves and then each successive pair of leaves will have a longer internode by two or three times the length of the previous one, just like the bull cane. If you allow it to continue growing it will have very long internodes and be straight as an arrow and feet long instead of inches. This is a bull cane on a vine, the anti-bonsai. You need to pinch the second or third set of leaves when you see it is going to be longer than an inch. It will do this one-at-a-time routine until you think it will go on forever, but keep pinching back as soon as it puts on the second set of leaves and eventually it will bud out all over and they will be short and they will show color. None of the pinched tips will bloom. Over time, as you'll get more and more ramification, but not like a elm, just a lot of buds, and the percentage of non-blooming buds will be reduced and you will be happy and name your first born, "Bougie". Don't you just love happy endings?
 

Mayank

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Doesn't look like a Bougie to me. I have several, and none with brown bark and your leaves have a different, translucent look. Are you absolutely sure this is a Bougie? They come from everywhere around the world along the equator, so anything's possible.

They bloom from the tips of a prior growth period's branch ends, so you need to let it go nuts and put out bull canes, then bloom on those and then cut it back hard enough to accommodate the next growing session's growth. That is, cut back to where it will look nice and then cut back beyond that to accommodate anticipated growth so that it will look nice after it grows back. After that initial "training", it will put out one bull cane at a time. You'll see a bud begin to expand as a cluster of leaves and lengthen. It will inflate the first pair of leaves and then each successive pair of leaves will have a longer internode by two or three times the length of the previous one, just like the bull cane. If you allow it to continue growing it will have very long internodes and be straight as an arrow and feet long instead of inches. This is a bull cane on a vine, the anti-bonsai. You need to pinch the second or third set of leaves when you see it is going to be longer than an inch. It will do this one-at-a-time routine until you think it will go on forever, but keep pinching back as soon as it puts on the second set of leaves and eventually it will bud out all over and they will be short and they will show color. None of the pinched tips will bloom. Over time, as you'll get more and more ramification, but not like a elm, just a lot of buds, and the percentage of non-blooming buds will be reduced and you will be happy and name your first born, "Bougie". Don't you just love happy endings?
It is a bougainvillea. See the image I just posted with the flowers.
 

Hartinez

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I’ve got a pink pixie Bougie that just flowers non stop. I’ll go through and trim out every bract and flower only for it to flush back through in a month. I do nothing but water regularly and feed heavy with a balanced NPK organic fertilizer. 🤷🏼‍♂️
 

just.wing.it

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I’ve got a pink pixie Bougie that just flowers non stop. I’ll go through and trim out every bract and flower only for it to flush back through in a month. I do nothing but water regularly and feed heavy with a balanced NPK organic fertilizer. 🤷🏼‍♂️
I had trouble getting mine to bloom for years...also tried all the tricks.
Finally seeing the first ones ever this year!
 

Hartinez

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I had trouble getting mine to bloom for years...also tried all the tricks.
Finally seeing the first ones ever this year!
I do nothing special to mine. And I’m no horticultural wizard that’s for sure. But mine just blooms and blooms. I wish I could tell you I did do something special @Mayank ! 😂🤷🏼‍♂️
 

bonsaichile

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I do nothing special to mine. And I’m no horticultural wizard that’s for sure. But mine just blooms and blooms. I wish I could tell you I did do something special @Mayank ! 😂🤷🏼‍♂️
The difference might be in your latitude. The amount and quality of sunlight your plant gets
 
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