How to grow bougainvillea | House & Garden

19.07.2024 - 08:20 / houseandgarden.co.uk / Hazel Sillver

Bougainvilleas

A familiar sight in the Mediterranean, where it clads villas in falls of vivid cerise purple and fuchsia pink, bougainvillea is pure joy. In the UK, it can be grown on a smaller scale under cover and wheeled out to grace the terrace during the warm summer months.

In its native South America, this liana (climbing shrub) pulls itself up trees and other structures using the thorns on its stems as crampons. The colourful papery 'flowers' it is covered in during summer are in fact bracts; the true tiny flowers are nestled amongst the bracts and are often visible as white dots. At their best, bougainvilleas bulge in masses of these weird and wonderful confetti bracts, like plants made of tissue paper.

In warm climes, the more vigorous vines are capable of scaling 10 metres or more and remain evergreen. Whereas, here in the UK, they won't be as rampant and usually lose some or all of their leaves in winter.

There are 17 species, with the most cultivated being Bougainvillea glabra and B. spectabilis, which both hail from Brazil; the hybrid B. x buttiana is also widely grown. All three have fabulously gaudy bracts in shades of neon magenta, but the 300 or so garden varieties include white, yellow, orange, lilac, red, and two-tone forms.

The more compact cultivars can be grown as houseplants, but the bigger bougainvilleas will coat the sunny wall of a conservatory in a curtain of colour. In good conditions, they should perform throughout summer and into autumn, cheering you with paper clouds of electric hot pink.

In a greenhouse or conservatory, bougainvillea can be planted in beds, unless you want to enjoy it outside in summer, in which case a pot is better. The root run is deep, but some containment will enhance