Bougainvillea Dropping Leaves & Not Flowering (Reasons & Fix)

Bougainvillea plant is a flowering shrub that is usually cultivated for its stunning blossoms. It is an ornamental vining plant in the family of Nyctaginaceae and native to eastern South Korea. Bougainvillea mostly cultivates on higher grounds or hillside areas.

Plants display heavenly beauty while blooming in a cluster over an uplifted vessel. It contains high medicinal properties as well and is often applied to prepare therapeutic tea to treat mild cold or cough issues.

This pretty-looking flowering shrub actually doesn’t claim much to bloom or get maintained. It will be enough if you can provide it with adequate space and a sunny location with some bare growing essentials.

Here are some other notable caring details for growing bougainvillea plant easily at your place-

Table of Contents

Not Flowering: How to Make Bougainvillea Bloom?

To boost the flowering quality of your favorite bougainvillea plant and get a handful of flowers at the end of the flowering season, you must follow a few smart caring methods-

Grow your plant under bright and direct sunlight
Make sure your plant is getting 7-8 hours of bright sunlight consistently
Water your plant when it seems dry and never do it unnecessarily and make soil soggy
Fertilize your plant frequently almost 4-6 times a year with rich plant food
You can prepare a homemade fertilizer by mixing mustard cake powder, bone meal, or fish emulsion in equal proportion
Repot the plant, when it overgrew the current planter, if you grow it indoor
Look for the troubleshoot issues (root rot and pests ) and take proper remedies asap.

How Often to Water Bougainvillea?

Proper watering is one of the key requirements to keep your bougainvillea plant healthy. No matter you are growing it indoors in a small planter or an outdoor area, in both cases, you must keep the method accurate. Here are some useful tips of when and how to water your bougainvillea plant perfectly-

Water the soil thoroughly once you plant them in the soil
Always use a growing medium that can drain extremely well
Once the excess water drains properly, let the plant soak under direct sunlight
You must let the top surface of the soil dry completely between watering
This will take a couple of weeks, especially during the winter or spring days
To keep the gap perfect, try watering your bougainvillea deeply every 3-4 weeks during its entire growing session.

Why is My Bougainvillea Dropping Leaves?

The commonest issue of a growing bougainvillea plant is its dropping leaves. Sometimes this problem may appear mildly to your growing plant. However, gradually this can gulp your entire healthy plant within a short period if you don’t treat it in time. You should know the real cause of why your plant starts having this dropping-leaves problem suddenly! Here are some clear ideas on why is this happening and how to deal with it efficiently in time-

Reasons for Dropping Leaves:

When your bougainvillea plant can’t get plenty of sunlight to thrive
If your plant is placed away from direct sunlight
When you water your plant unnecessarily or infrequently
If you keep your plant in a cold or low-humid place for long
When your plant gets any kind of stress or shock during replantation
If your plant gets sudden changes in its growing climate due to season changes
When if you place your plant in an improper hardiness zone, that is less than 9
And if you don’t treat the pests or bugs issues in time, before they do some irreversible damages.

How to Fix

Make sure your plant could get at least 7-8hours of direct sunlight every single day
Be certain the growing temperature never gets down less than 40 degrees F, ever
Water your plant every 2-3 three weeks around 2-inches deep watering
See the water is draining well from the bottom every time you water it
Nutrify your plant with proper fertilization about 4-5 times a year
Make sure your plant is placed in a spot with a proper hardiness zone and preferred climate
Be prepared to deal with the season changes issues smartly
Apply any possible remedies to your plant, once you find any troubleshoot the issue on it
And do the replantation process very carefully, and make sure you don’t shock the roots or plant in any manner

When to Prune Bougainvillea?

Pruning is necessary for such bushier shrubs to keep them vigorous. Let’s learn how to do the job accurately-

As bougainvillea is a heavily bushy shrub, try to hard prune the plant
You can do the pruning task from December to January
Bougainvillea plants have thrones, so, you must be very careful during this process
Wear thick garden gloves and bring a sharp pruner or shear that must be disinfected well
Look out for the dead, discolored, and infected parts of your plant first
Cut those parts out and trim the infected parts entirely, before they start contaminating
Now, find and trim off the overgrown or unnecessarily leggy stems or leaves from your plant
And look for the newly grown tips to cut them off midway, as this way, you can instigate the blooming cycle more vehemently.

How to Propagate Bougainvillea?

Bougainvillea is a fast-growing plant. You can propagate it very easily like any other common houseplant, despite its bushy shrub form. Here is an apparent idea of how to do it expertly in step by step method-

Bring a disinfected cutter and cut out a healthy piece of stem from the main plant first
Make sure you pick the mature one, during this process and cut off 6-7 inches apart
Be certain about the nods in your cutting stem
If your cutting has 6-7 nods, it will grow vigorous more easily
Remove the leaves from its bottom part now and dip the end into a rooting hormone
Prepare a small size planter with good drainage holes
Pour a good mixture of potting mix, bone meal, vermiculite, and perlite inside it
Dip a hole with your fingertip in the middle of the soil mix and sow the cutting into the hole
Secure the base properly and water the soil as much as the soil can be moist evenly before draining
Cover the pot with a plastic cover and place it in a warm spot with indirect sunlight
Wait for 6-8 weeks and your cutting will resprout then noticeably
Let the newly grown stem produce leaves, once it grows 5-6 leaves apparently, bring it out of the spot and place it in a warm sunny location to provide the plant with the best growing condition.

Is Bougainvillea Poisonous to Cats and Dogs?

This eye-catchy flowering plant is mildly toxic to dogs but not poisonous to cats at all. A bougainvillea plant contains a few properties, which can initiate some gastrointestinal issues in a dog. However, this can happen if your dog ingests a large amount of bougainvillea plant at once. You should seek medical help immediately.

Bougainvillea plant is not toxic to cats or any other house pets. But you should not forget that this plant has lots of thrones around the stems. Hence, you must keep this plant away from the reach of your loving house pets, no matter whether they are toxic to your pet or not!