Bougainvillea Plant Care: A Growing Guide Full Of Tips
Bougainvillea is a plant that truly needs to be seen to be believed. With its stunning flowers in bright colors and bold shapes, it’s impossible to miss when in full bloom. While bougainvillea plant care isn’t particularly difficult, there are key things you should know to ensure your plant thrives.
At Joy Us Garden, bougainvillea care is a popular topic we cover frequently! Having grown it in two very different climates—Santa Barbara, CA, and Tucson, AZ—I’m excited to share my experiences and insights with you.
I’ve received many questions about growing this vibrant flowering plant, so here is my comprehensive care guide. Be sure to stick around until the end because I answer some commonly asked questions.
Note: This was published on 12/18/2019. It was updated on 8/5/2024.
Bougainvillea Plant Care Growing Guides
Bougainvillea isn’t a plant for colder climates. It’s hardy in USDA zones 9 through 11, with optimal growth in zones 10 and 11. Below are our top guides for growing bougainvillea, rounded up in one place. We hope you find this helpful!
How to Care For & Grow Bougainvillea
If you live in a climate with a long growing season and mild winters and want an (almost) year-round floral fiesta, then bougainvillea is the plant for you. Depending on the variety, it can be grown on a trellis or over an arbor, against a building or fence, in containers, as a hedge or ground cover, in tree form, and as a bonsai. Here, I’m sharing care and growing tips for bougainvillea, a plant I have a lot of experience with.
How to Plant Bougainvillea in Pots
I’ve done multiple posts and videos on all aspects of growing bougainvillea—or so I thought! I know many of you are curious about bougainvilleas in containers, and I’ve seen many of them growing in pots over the years. This is all about planting bougainvillea in pots, including the soil mix to use, the type of bougainvillea to plant, the pot size required, the steps to take, and a key thing to know.
Bougainvillea Care in Pots
The answer to the question I often get: “Does bougainvillea grow well in pots?” is yes, with proper care! Here, you can learn more about growing bougainvillea in pots. There are key things you need to know if you’re going to grow bougainvillea successfully in containers, and they’re covered here.
How to Plant Bougainvillea
Planting bougainvillea isn’t too much different than planting any other shrub or vine except for one key factor. If you don’t do this one thing, it’s a crapshoot whether your bougainvillea will do well or even survive. The two most important things to know are that bougainvillea doesn’t like to have its roots disturbed, and it requires soil with good drainage.
What is Eating My Bougainvillea Leaves?
Are you seeing damage on your bougainvillea leaves? Like something’s been chomping and munching away? I’m not talking little nibbles here and there but some serious feasting. I’ll show you what it might be so you can identify three kinds of pests that commonly infest bougainvillea and the steps to take.
Bougainvillea Winter Care
For an extravaganza of color 8+ months out of the year, bougainvillea is hard to compete with. It stops blooming when the weather turns cool because it needs to rest before the show starts again. If you want your bougainvillea to thrive in the warmer seasons, there are a few things to know about bougainvillea winter care in the winter months.
Why is My Bougainvillea Dropping Yellow Leaves?
Let’s be honest here: bougainvillea is not a plant I grew up with. I thought it was some exotic plant until I moved to Santa Barbara 10 years ago where it’s found growing in some form or color on every block. It’s ubiquitous, I tell you, yet in my opinion, it’s a beautiful “weed.” I had no experience growing bougainvillea until I bought a house with three of them on the property.
The first winter, they suddenly started losing leaves, so I had to ask the question: Why are my bougainvilleas dropping lots of yellow leaves? I soon found out about leaf drop and share what I learned here.
Answering Your Questions About Bougainvillea
This is part of a monthly series listing the top questions we get asked about popular plants. Here, we’re answering the most commonly asked questions about bougainvillea, including flowering, pruning, training, and much more.
Bougainvillea Pruning Tips
Bougainvillea is a vigorous grower and needs pruning throughout the year. How often and to what extent you prune the plant depends on where you live, what shape or form it’s growing in now, and what shape you want it to take on. I’ll tell you from experience: bougainvillea isn’t hard to shape, but it can take some work. And be careful of those sharp thorns!
Got questions about growing bougainvillea? We’ve got the answers!
Check out our in-depth Bougainvillea Guide, designed to help you grow this beautiful plant with confidence. Click the link to learn more. Happy growing!
Bougainvillea Plant Care FAQs
Bougainvillea needs full sun exposure, at least six hours a day, to produce a big show of flowers. These tropical plants love heat, too. Both are essential to bougainvillea plant care.
I have five bougainvilleas growing at my home here in Tucson. Three get less sun and bloom less than the ones that get 6-7 hours of sun a day. So, if yours gets morning sun only, it won’t grow as fast or bloom as much.
It depends on the age of the plant and what climate you’re growing it in.
Newly planted bougainvillea needs more frequent watering. It prefers deep watering every 7-14 days rather than more frequent shallow watering. I would water a freshly planted bougainvillea more often here in the desert than I would one that was freshly planted along the coast of California, where I used to live.
Once established, bougainvilleas prefer to be kept on the dry side, with less frequent but deeper waterings. Too much water leads to root rot, especially in heavier soils.
I never supplementally watered my two bougainvilleas in Santa Barbara because they were very well-established – both were over 20 years old. If you water a bougainvillea too much, it’ll produce excess foliage growth and won’t flower as much, if at all.
Here in Tucson, four of my bougainvillea (all established) are on drip. It runs twice a week for two hours in the warmer months. It’s off in winter, and the only water they’ll receive is what falls from the sky until I turn the drip back on in the spring. I have a bougainvillea in a container that gets watered every 5-21 days, depending on the season and the weather.
Bougainvillea flowers are what makes this plant so beloved! Lack of flowering is commonly due to the plant not receiving enough sun and heat. Bougies love warm climates and need sun and heat to bloom. The lower the light levels, the fewer flowers you’ll get.
Too much water, too much fertilizer, and over-pruning can also prevent bougainvilleas from flowering properly.
There is no one month. Depending on the climate zone, bougainvillea blooms from early spring through late fall.
Here in Tucson, my bougainvilleas bloom through early December. Once the temps are consistently cold, then the blooming stops.
One winter, we had a few nighttime freezes which froze not only the flowers but the foliage and branch tips, too. The first freeze happened at the end of December. My bougainvilleas didn’t start to show color until the very end of April, which was later than the previous two years.
In the two different climate zones where I’ve grown it, bougainvillea doesn’t bloom year-round. It’s also good to know that bougainvillea goes through flowering cycles. When my Bougainvillea Barbara Karst has put out its big bloom cycle, another won’t start for 3-5 weeks.
In Santa Barbara, my bougainvilleas bloomed longer because it’s a warmer climate with warmer winter evenings. They would flower off and on from the end of February/beginning of March through the end of December.
There are fertilizers formulated for bougainvillea. I’ve never used any of them because my bougainvilleas have always flowered consistently and been healthy.
Here in Tucson, I apply a 3-4″ layer of compost around the base of my bougainvilleas in late winter/early spring. This is a more extreme climate, and the soil isn’t as rich, so my bougainvilleas appreciate the extra boost. Plus, the compost helps to hold in some of the soil moisture once the temps creep above 90F.
Oh yes, you’ll need to because this plant grows fast once the temps warm. How often and how you do it depends on the type of bougainvillea, your climate, and the form you want it to be.
I’ve written quite a few posts on pruning and trimming bougainvillea so you can check those out here.
Once established and growing in the full sunlight and heat it loves, bougainvillea is a fast grower. My bougainvilleas in Santa Barbara grew a bit faster because the winter evening temperatures were milder. In Tucson, a freeze could knock them back.
In conclusion, providing proper bougainvillea plant care will transform it into a stunning centerpiece in your garden. Even outside of tropical climates, with the right attention, you can enjoy the show-stopping blooms in vivid colors that make bougainvillea such a great addition to any landscape. Follow these tips, and you’ll enjoy the stunning bougainvillea blooms for years to come.
Happy gardening,
- About the Author
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Nell, the founder of Joy Us garden, was born into a gardening family and grew up in Connecticut’s countryside. After living in Boston, New York, San Francisco, & Santa Barbara, she now calls the Arizona desert home. She studied horticulture & garden design, working in the field all her life. Nell is a gardener, designer, blogger, Youtube creator, & author. She’s been gardening for a very long time & wants to share what she’s learned with you.
In the Dallas area should a bougainvillea in a pot be brought in for the winter?
Hi Kathryn – I’m not sure what climate zone Dallas is in. I can tell you that I lived in zone 10a & my bougainvilleas were fine. I now live in zone 9a where the past 2 winters brought freeze damage to my bougainvilleas. They did come back though in spring. Nell