November care and maintenance of Bougainvillea in Zone 9 in the UK (Essex).
Click on the image below to access the video.
Since the last post here https://gardenproject2021.blogspot.com/2022/04/bougainvillea-tesco-type-uk-problems.html which was shot towards the end of September the weather has been ultra mild. In fact tonight they've said on the news tonight that this is going to be the warmest year on record. I'm writing this section of the post on Nov 8th and the temp tonight is going to be 8 or 9 degrees centigrade and the plants are still outside un-covered and when I last looked, they appeared to be growing still with bracts.
I've hardly watered them and just allowed the rain and the fact that it's not hot and sunny to maintain the moisture. Tomorrow's Friday and on Saturday I'll have a proper look at them and consider getting them covered and it looks like they're going to be OK in the garden at least till Mid-November.
Cancel that, November 8th - the weather changed...
Over-night the prediction was that it was going to get down to 2 centigrade, so they had to come in. Having brought them in I then got a sense of how much bigger they were in comparison to this time last year. There seems to be lots of fresh leaves that are a 'Browny-red' colour.
15th November and the plants have been inside now for a week and checking them this morning I noted that plant #1 which is the one that sits in the sunny corner was covered in white speckles all over the Bracts and the leaves. On closer inspection and just touching the the leaves and bracts - suddenly both started to fall off. I suspected the white dots might be some kind of infestation, so I got a magnifier and sure enough it was hundreds - possibly thousands of white aphids.
First thing I did was move the plant to another room and then hoover as many of them up and lots of the leaves came off as I did this. The next day I had another look and noticed as before, they seem to have targeted the new buds. The other three plants seem to be OK at the minute as a consequence they look in good condition and seem to growing vigorously, whereas the Aphid plant already looks knackered.
I've looked at a couple of websites and found this https://www.thespruce.com/control-aphids-on-houseplants-1902889 so I'm either going to use Neem oil or make up my own mixture with the Garlic recipe.
16th Nov - Plant one looks knackered because of the Aphids, so I've made a video today and I've gone radical. Some of the bigger leaves had adult Aphids and reading about them, they reproduce like crazy and the white spots were the skins from where they moult. (See further down).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVTitHBwpN0
Also watched this which kind of makes sense with the reason for the Aphids in the first instance - too much Nitrogen.
Just looked on Reddit for more and ended up posting this...
In conclusion if you want to have this one of the plants you want to have in your garden in the summer it's increasingly looking like quite some aggro.
Late November (24th) and the only plant that doesn't seem to have gone dormant at all is the Italian 'Barbara Karst' which seems to be having a spurt of growing activity and looks like it's quite vigorous, more so than at any point since I've bought it? It's been warm again today after a cold period and the lights been pretty good - cold days often coincide with clear blue skies which is the case - so indoors the light has been good. Today outside it's been 18c - 20c as opposed to last weeks 2 or 3c days with frost over-night so potentially sub-zero.
The other two plants with leaves on still also seem to be growing and thankfully no sign of the Aphids. The Aphid plant which was also pruned, looks dead in terms of having no leaves, but there are buds and the insides of the branches where the plant was cut are still green, so it is very much alive.
End of November 29th Had my weekly look at the plants, checking for Aphids and see how they're doing generally and I've been surprised to see that all of them are actually growing - some of them really well. The Barbara Karst plant seems to be doing really well despite the massive reduction in light - it's indoors and the days are short and generally the weather's been really poor and the light levels the same.
I'm not watering them much, I use around a litre of water across all of the plants once a week. I've got buckets in the garden with rain water in which apparently is preferable to sink water, so I've filled up my water bottle from there and it's indoors now for 24hrs letting it reach the indoor ambient temperature. I'll water the plants tomorrow.
I've done some video footage of how I dealt with the Aphids and the follow-up pruning - which was pretty minimal, but for me radical, but as you'll see below it seems to have worked and the plant (No.1) is now covered in new "Aphid-less" shoots and looks really promising in terms of growth going forwards. I'm now looking at the other three relatively scrawny looking plants 2 and 3 and thinking maybe I should cut them back and see if the react in the same way? I might shoot some more video tomorrow if I do that, edit it and upload it to Youtube and put the link on here.
Plant 1. The new growth coming through having had all the leaves removed and some light pruning.
Some more of the shoots coming through on Plant 1, every node appears to be very much alive and producing new growth.
Plant #2 with new growth at the top of the plant
This is plant #4 The Barbara Karst. which is the newest as previously mentioned. I've had it just over a year now, having had it imported from Italy. It's been really lethargic in terms of growth until now. I'd have expected with the reduction in light it would have been fairly dormant, but that's not the case. Since coming indoors it's grown really well. Why this is I'm not sure, but it could be that having received it last year I re-potted it and maybe it's taken this long to bed in and settle? It had plenty of feed over the summer and maybe that's now been absorbed into the earth and is working as it should be?
I'm inclined now to leave it and see how it goes over the coming months...
Plant #4 new growth.
Looking at the plants and checking them today I noted a single blackfly (Aphid) of the flying variety and tried to kill it, but it alluded me by dropping off the leave as I moved in for the kill. I'll keep an eye on them all over the coming days as I don't want that one laying eggs and triggering another infestation. I might get the hoover out and give the plants a going over.
Here's what I first noticed of the Aphid infestation.
