Purple Queen® Bougainvillea

Follow a regular watering schedule during the first growing season to establish a deep, extensive root system. Watering can be reduced after establishment. USE CAUTION IN REMOVING PLANT FROM CONTAINER SO THAT ROOTS ARE NOT DAMAGED. Prefers acidic soil with pH range of 6.1 to 6.5. Pruning time: spring.

Use this vine as a blooming groundcover or on a trellis. It can be grown in a container with support or allowed to drape over the side for an exotic look. Plant on banks and slopes for an avalanche of color or allow to drape over the edge of retaining walls.

Contrast the exquisite purple blooms with Variegated Calamondin Orange (Citrus reticulata 'Calamondin Variegata'), with its creamy yellow, variegated foliage and striped fruit. Also looks beautiful near the showy StarburstTM Double Gold Evergreen Daylily (Hemerocallis hybrid 'Monold') or Bird Of Paradise (Strelitzia regina).

Purple Queen is one of the finest new bougainvillea cultivars introduced by Monrovia. It's history descends through a convoluted ancestry involving three South American species from Brazil including B. spectabilis, B. glabra and B. peruviana. The genus comprises 14 species of spiny shrubs, trees and vines. It was named after the famous French explorer, Louis-antoine de Bougainville, who circumnavigated the globe on a three year journey from 1766-1769. On that trip he was the first European to land on the Solomon Islands, and there his naturalists from the ship discovered the great woody vines and named them after the captain.

A tea of bougainvillea flowers is used in Mexican folk medicine to treat cough. Leaves of the species B. spectabilis is a source of a newly discovered compound, pinitol, used to treat some metabolic diseases such as insulin resistant diabetes.