Give it more direct sun than that.

They bloom best in full sun in Phoenix ... get as close to that as you can for its conditons and you might get a bloom or two.

I agree...definitely direct sun. Must say that a few of my new bougies this year haven't flowered as profusely as my established ones have. But give 'em time...they're one of the easiest plants to grow here. I love the profuse color of bougainvillea. I have 8 in my yard and plan to add 4-6 more this winter. I've already trimmed my established ones back 3-4 times this summer...they're out of control! I usually stick with the typical Barbara Karst, just because it's so hardy. But I did plant a purple one this spring that's growing like gangbusters (and blooming). Good luck!

My neighbor had red bougainvillia and she never watered it, it bloomed profusely. I had white bougainvillia and watered it, it hardly ever bloomed until I stopped watering it. They do need lots of direct sunlight.

I just wanted to post an update about 2 weeks into the changes. I have been giving the bougainvillea about 6-7 hours of direct sunlight a day (which does require some daily moving of the pot). I water only after the soil had dried out down about 1 inch and I soak when I do water. I've had an enormous amount of growth with no more yellowed leaves and FINALLY have what I believe are blooms forming. They're coming out (so far) as three pink leave with the same number of small red stamens? So, please send you wishes because I think I may be on to something. THANK YOU so much for the great advice. Now here's hoping it won't be for nothing now that the daily temps have dropped suddenly to about 60 degrees.

"three pink leaves"

That's the "blooms" ... and now that you know what to do, maybe next summer it will bloom better.

Bougainvillea is not hard to grow, sometimes, you need to change, your potingmix with some potash with atleast five hours of sunlight, this will do the trick,the result hundreds of happy flowers with growth, happy gardening

My Bougainvillea hasn't bloomed since I brought it home either. I want to move it to the backyard so it can get more sun, but I have dogs. Does anyone know if it's poisonous to dogs?

Cherrygirl-
No, the bougie is not poisonous to dogs. We have it everywhere here in the hot desert and the animals suffer no ill effects. My cats sleep under a bower of leaves, on top of a bed of pink 'bracts' (the pink leaves are not the flowers, the little tiny things inside of the bracts are actually the flowers!) about 6 inches deep. Must be quite comfy, as the old fat girl cat is there every day! So- don't worry about your pets!

Susie

I live in Florida and have just gone through 2 hurricanes, so my bougainvilla look just awful and are turning yellow. Is there hope for them to survive? One is losing some of it's leaves. Should I look into fertiling or just leave it alone for a bit and see what happens? Any advice is much appreciated!!

Bougainvillea is actually very happy dry. Maybe too much water is the problem for some of you. That is probably why you get yellow leaves. Much direct sun is needed for best blooms. I know that some are in containers, but I would hold the water until it looks like it is starting to suffer from lack of water and then water it. This will give you a good guage on how often to water. And the plant will rebound nicely. No harm done.

Hi, Feel lucky that you are not getting many blooms. We have 8 Bougainvilleas. We had 3 more that were on Lattice along side of our car port. They had so many blooms that were blowing on to our neighbor's property that we had to take them out(We payed a gardner $400 dollars to remove ). All the blooms can be a real mess. They are a very beautifull plant but all of those blooms can be a real problem to control.

Phoenix greetings!

This plant can take the full phoenix sun, which triggers a massive amount of blooms. Give it all the sun available - don't hold back!

If you don't mind, I need help with something (??) chewing the leaves of our "boggie". We haven't been able to find any caterpillers at all, but something is eating them.

Any help?? We now are on the west FL. coast.

Happy holidays to you all.

You can force a bougainvillea to bloom by feeding the plant birth control. My mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother have done this for years. Feed the plant birth control pills, just deposit them straight into the soil. IT REALLY WORKS!

I know this is a really late reply, but I thought it might help someone else. My bogie is planted in the ground, and I noticed for about the last year it really wasn't growing or blooming. Come to find out, it wasn't getting hardly any water with the watering system I was using. Now watering it well once a week. Also started fertilizing it with BOUGAIN fertilizer (once/month) that is just for bougainvilleas. Found it at Home Depot. It is much happier now, and has put out lots of new growth and blooms in the last month.