PlantFiles: Paper Flower, Lesser Bougainvillea
Bougainvillea glabra

Bougainvillea is a thorny vine, up to 20 feet long. It can be grown as an evergreen shrub and will bloom year around in frost free locations. A frost will kill most of the branches, but the plant should grow back rapidly from the roots. The bougainvillea root system is extremely fragile. The plant doesn't like to be moved. Take extra caution when removing the plant from the pot before placing it in the ground. The flowers are small and white. There are three flowers inside each colorful bracht. Once established, plants are drought resistant. Propogate by cuttings from mid-winter to early spring, keep soil mixture moist. Bottom heat may help. Most bougainvillea sold today are hybrids between B glabra and B spectabalis.

I would like to add that it requires a soil mixture of a ph level of 6.5. Thank You.

The ones I grow in pots bloom much better than the ones in the open ground. That's because my predecessors here planted them stupidly. They get too much shade from the eaves and they're too close to the lawn, so they spend all their time sending out their roots to steal nitrogen from the lawn and making lots of green leaves and few bracts. Someone across the street had a magnificent bougainvillea, unobstructed southern exposure and against a white wall. And cut it down, can you believe it???

They will freeze in a hard winter, but they come back. The potted ones have to be hauled inside. They are not bug-prone. One orange or gold one I had (Tahitian gold? California gold?) regularly sported back to scarlet, either part of a bract or an entire one.

Someone commented that most commercially available plants today are hybrids btw B. glabra and B. spectabilis. Well, maybe so, but I have some typically glabra plants that have distinctly different leaves (darker green, pointier, shinier) and growth habit (stiffer, less lax canes, more readily trainable as shrub rather than vine). These always have magenta bracts. Also, B. peruviana seems to contribute its share of genes to the hybrids too.

Here in Southern California this plant will cover a whole house in a few years if you let it! The colors of the "flowers" are brilliant and it is spectacular to see a long fence with 4 or 5 different colors alternating along it. The spines are long, hard and sharp, so be careful...
Take it easy on the water. It is surprising how little the plant needs once established. WTH.

I have many varieties of Bougainvillea and love them all. I have my North side border fence lined with nine varieties all of a different leaf or bract color. I find these plants very easy to train and shape. They grow well in containers or out in the yard. They can be trained as a small bush, a tall bush, and even into decorative and colorful arches.
Art

Paper Flower, Lesser Bougainvillea Bougainvillea glabra is Naturalized in Texas and other States.