Help! My Bougainvillea plant is really struggling to take root and grow. What do I do next?

I just planted two 4 foot Bougainvillea plants and I followed the suggested planting directions... now it has been 4 weeks and they really seem to be struggling. Any suggestions to boost the growth?

Help! My Bougainvillea plant is really struggling to take root and grow. What do I do next?
http://hendry.ifas.ufl.edu/HCHortNews_Bo...
Reply:Where do you live. It's hot just about everywhere so anything you plant is going to struggle a bit. Even 'drought tolerant' plants need time to get established, usually one growing season. Are they in pots or in the ground. If your soil drains well, water it regularly. If it's hot where you live, just worry about keeping it alive for now. It'll go dormant in the fall/winter, which is when its roots will grow and get established. If the drought continues into the fall/winter, it will need watering from time to time even if it doesn't have any leaves.





If you're in heavy clay soils, you could have another problem...
Reply:Mine all started out that way, they take a bit of patience when they are becoming established. Although everyone says how drought resistant they are, mine needed daily watering until they got their roots to spread out. Also, you might want to hit them with a little liquid fertilizer or the time released granules at their base. That helped jump start mine.
Reply:Depending on where you live, these plants can be very hardy. In TX, we have to water ours like crazy...make sure to keep the soil from washing away from the roots. Prune it back some...that promotes new growth. (I do mine year round, and it grows like a monster!)


Since mine is not in full sun, I feed mine some bloom booster to make it bloom.
Reply:try water. lots of

miriam