The ActiveRain Nature Station: Nature's accupuncturist

When I came to San Diego back in 1993, one of the first bushes I ran into was the bougainvillea, and I use the phrase "ran into" literally. Those who are familiar with the bougainvillea know that I looked like a pincushion from all the thorn pricks in my body with little red globs of blood marking the points of entry. Ah, so that's accupuncture!

Nothwithstanding my first encounter with the mighty bougainvillea, it is a plant that I have come to love, for several reasons:

1. It doesn't like to be watered, saving on my water bill.
2. It doesn't like to be fertilized, saving on my fertilizer bill.
3. It doesn't like to be pruned, saving me time.
4. It blooms 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, except during one day in the Fall where it blooms for 25 hours, and one day in the Spring where it blooms only 23 hours that day. Ooops, and whenever we elect a new President, it likes to add an extra day to its year and give me 366 days of blossoms.

Plant geneticists have now come up with more colors other than the standard red and purple, including one variety where the flower bracts begin as bright golden/orange and then fade to a pink color as the bracts age (picture below). There is also a variety where the bracts begin as dark pink and fade to light pink and finally white as the bracts age.

The bougainvillea is a very versatile plant, so you can train it to be a trellis vine, a standard (looks like a tree), a ground cover, a potted plant, a fence, an arbor.... Limited only by your imagination.

Those same plant geneticists have also developed dwarf varieties, thornless varieties, and some with variegated leaves, all of which can make great additions to pots sitting around your pool and spa, requiring no attention from you to make them bloom profusely.

The only significant problem with the bougainvillea is that it is very easy to lose this plant when it's transplanted. It absolutely despises having its roots disturbed, so if you bring one home from the nursery to plant, keep that root ball intact. It's even okay to simply cut out the bottom of the plastic container, then cut a slit up the side, then put the whole container in the ground so as to disturb the roots as little as possible.

If you accidentally break the root ball apart, go ahead and plant it, give it one good watering to soak all the soil around it, and then sit back and hope for the best. Occasionally break a small branch tip to see if it's still green. Even if it loses all its leaves and looks dead, don't give up on it until every branch is brown and dry. You might get a pleasant surprise, and if it does recover, it will grow very fast.

In other words, all the bougainvillea wants is for you to sit back, ignore it, and watch it do its thing. So for you this Sunday morning, following are some of my favorite bougainvillea pictures from out and about in San Diego. If the slide show here doesn't work on your computer, click on "View All Images" to watch it at slide.com.

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