Yes Sir, I can bougie...

Not that it is anything approaching a decent bonsai, but I did feel it necessary to show the world that Scotland is not so dull and grey and sunless (well, not all the time) that we just can't grow Bougainvilleas. So I do hope Sam (Kauaibonsai) is out there looking in. Nothing like yours Sam, but I am pleased with the amount of flowers (for which thanks to Jim L for the advice to feed, feed and then feed some more)





Suggestions on how to take this on a step or three would be welcome. As you can see loads of top growth but little in the way of trunk thickening. The trunk is only about 1cm / half an inch in diameter. So, do I hack down the branch growth or let them get longer and sacrifice them at a later stage? I'm assuming in my climate a thick truck would take years of growing in a glasshouse.

Oh that reminds me: yes it is currently kept in a cold glasshouse in summer (where on occasion it gets to 30C. ) and in the winter I keep it in my porch.

Nice plant.

I'm sure that with appropriate techniques, you can give it a feel of bonsai, a bit like "cloud-shaped" trees, niwaki, for other species...

This is a "dwarf" form known as Pink Pixie, it is almost thorn less. I have seen them at 20 feet tall in South Florida, but it more a shrub than a vine like other bougainvillea. I don't think there is any magic to getting growth, but I would feed it a balanced fertilizer rather than one formulated to promote blooms.

Here in sunny Portugal, i use *Biorgano* organic fertilizer, it stinks on the first day, but there is never risk in over-feeding, and with lots of water, bougaivillia grow like weeds, for helping with blooming i let them go thirsty untill the leafs droop slightly and them water and feed lots afterwards, for thicknning of the trunk only with the years, i am afraid... your bouggie looks very healthy, but the trunk you will achieve as the time goes by, otherwise if you come in hollidays to the Algarve, i can get you a really good one, Olive and Bouggies are my favorite subjects, and i have a few, regards...

Looks good, Fiona. As in all else bonsai, only time will give your little tree a fat trunk, though you could "fatten" it by cutting it back to become a small shohin.

Your bougie looks good, pink pixies usually dont bear much flowers unlike other bougies,your tree has lots of flowers. I think theres not much you can do with the size of the trunk, if that tree is in our country all you have to do is plant it directly to ground, wait a year or so and it will be 4 or 5 times thicher. I like the suggestion of Jim, cut it short and make a small shohin I can imagine a small shohin with lots of flowers with almost no leaves?

best regards
ka pablibg

Congratulations Fiona! Nothing like thefeeling when our "babies" perform for us!. Your Bougie is pretty!
Best, Todd

hi fiona:

yes I am out here in the faraway hinterland quietly trying to perfect the making of swiss cheese-artificial variety of course ! (pardon the stupid inside joke). you have a cute pixie. quite an accomplishment to grow a tropical in Scotland AND get it to flower, as well. Congratulations. sharing one I collected a few months back.

best wishes, sam

Swap?

if there was any possible way to get a tree to you, I'd send it-my treat

best wishes, sam

Hi Fiona.

I love this specie,,,but honestly and I am sorry to say that the bougie you have right now is too young to be styled as a bonsai, if you forced it to make a bonsai out of it (IMHO) the trunk wouldn't be proportion to the lovely flowers and the leaves,,,no matter how you design it (at the moment). but I bet with your talent and the healthy growth of your tree it would look stunning someday.
I am not sure on the rate of it's growth in your region, but here it would only take two years planted on the ground to have thick trunk suitable for bonsai design.

regards,
jun

Hi Fiona,

The sun shines in Scotland alright!!!

Pink Pixie it is as Billy has correctly pointed out. Of the 3-4 odd Bougie species that I have laid my hands on, this one is the most vigorous growing and needs constant, I mean once a month pruning. Otherwise it tends to shoot all over and shaping is a major challenge. I've got one which in its nearly 8 odd years in a bonsai pot and the last 2 years in a growth pot has not added a millimeter in girth. So don't expect a girth more than what you've got there, unless you are planning to dunk it in the ground or a huge growth pot. The flowers are a delight and makes up for the challenges and the time spent... All the best and have fun....

Ravi

I still have a considerably larger bougainvillea you can have if you visit. And if you can somehow smuggle it past two countries' customs officials.

Hey Fiona,

So very cute, but, if you want a decent trunk on it super size the pot and fire up the heaters. They are more sensitive to cold than the larger growing types, I lost the whole top half of one due to frost while the normal one on the fence next to it didnt even stop flowering.

Here's a couple shots of one of mine, typical 6" nursery stock with a trunk about half the thickness of a pencil, it then sat on a friends terrace for 2yrs without change. I planted it in the ground almost 2yrs ago & the trunk is now about 8". The first pic was May '10, the trunk shot is Jan '11, included it for the grasshopper.
https://i.servimg.com/u/f25/15/55/80/08/pixie10.jpg
https://i.servimg.com/u/f25/15/55/80/08/trunk10.jpg

Matt

Fiona,,,cute treeyou have!! you will have fun and prove you can grow this tropical tree!!! i have looked at one in a near by nursery several times but don,t know if i can winter it...may have to try but i just don,t want to kill another one keep going it will be nice take care john

And still it flowers! Obviously it doesn't realise it's in Scotland.



Was going to shorten the branches but I think I'll bask in the flowers for this year and then start the lengthy process of shohination next year.

Maybe I should stop feeding it porridge.

Odd. Mine don't flower in little pods at the end of branches.

But it is very pretty, Fiona.

GOOD GOING Fiona,,your tree is looking great....i like the flowers on these..i just started one maybe i can have some luck with it........take care john

JimLewis wrote:Odd. Mine don't flower in little pods at the end of branches.

But it is very pretty, Fiona.

As I could gather, the climate in north Carolina is somewhat similar to where I live.

I did have a "Bougainvillée" that my mother had brought me from a trip to Belgium : they sell them by the thousands there, they are grown in greenhouses, overfed and sold when in flower.

Each year, they make a lot of money I'm sure because those who buy them can't keep them over the winter if they live in the northern 2/3 of France : outside, they die, inside, they dry out.

I have several pomegranates, the dwarf species and the double-flower species. It's impossible to keep them outside in the winter, so it's always a lot of trouble having them pass over the cold season : whatever I tried, they come out very weak in the spring, my worst experience was this year. i took them to my ex-brother-in-law who's a realyy nice chap, with a kind of winter garden. Two weeks later, I popped in, and had a look at "my" trees : Arghhh (as they say in "Holy Graal"), the leaves on the olive-trees had turned a sick, greyish colour, and they crumbled to dust when you touched them.

He just thought that a "dormant tree" didn't need any watering

One olive is definitely lost, the two other ones are much crippled, and the pomegranates had flowered in January, then lost all of the pale leaves they had put on before I could tell them to wait a little before showing off.

I'm glad I gave my "Lagestromia indica" to my sister who lives between La Rochelle and Bordeaux : it will never be a bonsai, neither an average bonsai ofr a top-of-the-shelf tree, but it has grown more than a meter high (3 feet) and is bearing wonderful flowers.

So Fiona, if you have a greenhouse, or even an entrance with a lot of light, or a veranda, I'd suggest you kkep it as a house-plant, not a bonsai.

Don't you think that trying to "reduce" anything to bonsai is a kind of fixation ?

Fortunately, I'm answering YOU, so I hope no one will take this reply as an attack to all the red-haired lassies living north of Hibernia

Now, what about Scots pines, English ivy, but most of all, you also have "Golden Rain" trees over there : I saw some very nice bonsai specimens, but too few so far.

And it's a difficult species too, not for the same reasons as keeping a sub-tropical tree alive, if not healthy-looking.

Come on, let those in Florida, Spain or Sicilia show us nice Mediterreanean trees, and be a good girl, let them know we people up north have trees so beautiful they can't even dream of...

We're all the same, but different. I don't think we should try species that don't match our environments, even if we "envy" what they show.

Wow. How many N.M.E.s did I make tonight?

Well,...

AlainK wrote: ...I hope no one will take this reply as an attack to all the red-haired lassies living north of Hibernia ...

I'm strawberry blonde I keep tellin' ya!!!!

I kept it indoors over the winter and it hasn't gone out of the unheated greenhouse all summer (which was about three days last week). It's really only a whim and I really don't have any pretensions to it becoming a bonsai. I'll just need to wait 'til I win the Lottery and move to Hawaii before I seriously consider bougies as bonsai.

And when that happens I'll be looking for a slave to do all the work if you fancy a job change, Alain. Us red-heads, strawberry blondes crack a mean whip ya know

moyogijohn wrote:Fiona,,,cute treeyou have!! you will have fun and prove you can grow this tropical tree!!! i have looked at one in a near by nursery several times but don,t know if i can winter it...may have to try but i just don,t want to kill another one keep going it will be nice take care john

You just need to keep them indoors in the colder times. Look up Meehan's Miniatures near Hagerstown. They do bougies very well. They can provide the tree and counseling on it's needs.

This variety looks alot like the Pixie Queen. I like those in particular as they are not prone to rot like other varieties (I heard it was genetically engineered for being more vigorous and resilient).

All Bougies grow fairly quickly in the tropics as long as they get alot of sun, growing space, and generous balanced fertilizing. I´m not sure what the growth rate would be in your country.

I´d definitely plant it in the gound on top of a wood plank, and start training the nebari from now. I would prune the branches but would definitely leave the top one grow as tall as it wants to go to thicken the trunk faster. Once the trunk reaches your desired growth, I´d sacrifice it.

Whenever you do get to styling, I wouldn´pt go for a pointy Apex like customary with conifers...it´s not natural with tropical trees.

Ours are more dome shaped...umbrellas!

AK_Panama wrote:This variety looks alot like the Pixie Queen. I like those in particular as they are not prone to rot like other varieties (I heard it was genetically engineered for being more vigorous and resilient).

Ah, genetic engineering bonsai, have we talked about that before?

AK_Panama wrote:
I´d definitely plant it in the gound on top of a wood plank, and start training the nebari from now.

That would be a death sentence in Scotland for a Bougy.

Zone envy is a terrible thing....