I couldn't find a forum on bogies or grafted plants, so I thought I might ask for help here.
My wife and I bought 2 grafted bogies, about 3 weeks ago, and planted them in large (25-30 gal) planters, using good, well-drained potting soil.. They're in full sun.
They've been losing flowers steadily since we bought them. I know bogies are sensitive to having their roots disturbed, but I thought they should have been adjusted by now.
One of the plants is growing new shoots, and the other doesn't seem to be.
My question is, how often to water? I know bogies like soil on the dry side. It's hot here (80's and 90's every day), and the soil in the planters seems to dry out very quickly.
Any advice is appreciated.
Need Bougainvillea Advice
If all that's happening is they're losing flowers I wouldn't worry, that's fairly common when you plant things, they need to focus on repairing any damage to the roots from the transplanting so they'll drop their flowers since those take a lot of energy. And bougies sometimes bloom in waves anyway, so it might not even be related to the transplanting, it might have just been time for those flowers to be done. So if the leaves aren't showing any signs of trouble I wouldn't worry about it too much.
In terms of watering--nobody's going to be able to give you an exact frequency (and if someone does give you an exact frequency, it may be the right one for them but not necessarily for you, so I wouldn't follow it). There are a lot of variables--temperature, humidity, how much sun they get, what sort of potting mix you used, how much soil volume there is in the pot relative to the roots, etc. The best thing to do is stick your finger down a few inches into the pot and see how it feels--if it's still moist then hold off on watering, but if it's dry then you can water. Don't trust the appearance of drying out quickly--that is just the very top layer of soil and it will dry out quickly, but an inch or two down it could be very wet still.
I also worry a bit about your pot size...how big are your plants? If you have plants that were in a 1 gal or 5 gal container when you got them then moving them right away into a huge pot can cause problems. When you have a huge volume of soil relative to the amount of roots, then when you water the plant's roots can't take up very much of that moisture very quickly, so the roots end up sitting in wet soil for a lot longer than is good for them. Since bougies like things on the dry side, that could eventually cause root rot, and at the very least it could limit how many flowers you get since they tend to (in my experience at least) bloom better when they're on the dry side.
ecrane3,
Thanks for the advice. You're right - the soil on top of the panters is dry and cracked, but the soil 3 inches down is still a little damp. I'll hold off for a while on watering.
You might be right on the size of the pot, too, but I don't think I could convince DW of that. She got a good deal on them, she loves them, and I'm sure they're here to stay. We used well-draining soil (MG), and I 'll keep the soil on the dry side.
Thanks again for your input.
Steve
How much too small are the plants for the pot? If the pots are just a little bit oversized and you're careful on the watering it may not be a big deal, but if these were 1 gal size plants that were plopped into 25 gallon containers there's a decent chance they'll end up overwatered and dead even if you're extra careful on watering. If you (or DW!) have your heart set on using that particular pot but it's way too big for the plant, you can put the plant in an appropriate size container, and then set that inside the larger pot (and if you need to add height, find another pot and turn it upside down inside there and use it as a stand to place the shorter pot on) Then as the plants get bigger you can pot them up one size at a time and eventually they'll be the right size for the big pot.
The plants came in 3 gallon containers, and the roots were a little pot-bound.
If I had something that was potbound in a 3 gal pot, I would move it up into a 5 gal pot. If it was in the 8-10 gal range you would probably be OK if you're careful on the watering, but 25-30 gal still sounds too big to me.
I almost killed a lot of my plants by overwatering and planting in pots too large. Be careful!
Every bougie that I have brought home has lost all of its flowers within the first couple of days so that is just the plant letting its displeasure known. Be very careful not to overwater it though. TinaA
You don't necessarily have to direct plant into a large container. Next time you could try up-potting to a 7 gallon and just surrounding the 7 gallon with soil altogether inside the larger decorative pot. One thing I've noticed in my career contrary to some of what is posted here is that until the plant has actually sent out new roots into the surrounding wet soil, what's occuring within the orignal pot boudn rootball and the surrounding new soil are 2 different things. In other words, within the first 2 weeks, the original rootball may need to be watered (pouring the water only into the rootball- and I used to make a little "levy" of dirt in a ring around the rootball to make sure it went in only where I wanted it to go) even if the surrounding soil is wet. However, I wouldn't worry too much in this case since the plant is a Boug. Also, don't know if it has been mentioned yet, but bougs bloom on the new vegatitive growth.
Fauna, thanks for the info! I will follow that approach with my new potted plants from now on.
My experience teach me that these vines need less water but full sun.
Your vines will recover soon and grow rapidly.
Kaleem
I haven't grown a Boug. in a while, but I've also done what fauna4flora describes (potting the small pot within the large pot and surrounding that with soil.)
Another thing I've done is fill the bottom of the large pot with something other than soil, such as packing peanuts, rocks...etc...then you've got much less soil and great drainage, too.
Once, I even put an upside down ice-cream bucket in the bottom of a large pot and then placed the plant and soil on top of and around it....it worked out nicely!
Another thing is, don't leave them outside if the weather goes below 50, they tend to get mad about that.