A coworker has offered two large (maybe 10-inch diameter trunk)
bougainvillea -- all I have to do is dig them up.

Anyone have any tips or suggestions?

Zone 23.

Thanks,

Mike

"Mike Bunnell" wrote in news:ci4mb.74992
$La.16802@fed1read02:

A coworker has offered two large (maybe 10-inch diameter trunk)
bougainvillea -- all I have to do is dig them up.

Anyone have any tips or suggestions?

From my experiences, you can probably do no wrong as long as
you get some decent roots.

In November '01, Thanksgiving weekend, I collected a fairly
large bougainvilla that my father had grown in Daytona,
Florida.

The plant was taken to Massachusetts and grown under lights
the first winter. It has thrived since then, and has been cut
down to a small tree while developing new branches.


Collecting Details:

The plant was 6' high, the trunk was about 3" to 4" diameter.

I cut the plant down to about 3 feet tall, and dug out the
rootball to about 20" in diameter, maybe 9" deep. When I
cut the height down, I was careful to make sure some leaves
were retained on each stalk.

The soil was basically muck. There were several large roots
and a small amount of fine root in it. The rootball with
soil was wrapped with pallet-wrap for transportation (i.e.,
heavy-duty stretch-wrap).

The plant was immediately brought back up North. It was
overplanted in a dense, Turface plus organics mix without
disturbing the existing soil. It was placed in a 60 degree
room under lights.

New leaves were sprouting within two weeks. Considerable
effort was spent the first winter feeding the plant fairly
agressively to generate gowth. It grew well under the lights
in this fairly cool area. When significant leaves grew down
the stalk, major chunks of stalk were cut to reduce plant
height. (Maybe 2" to 3" of height at a time.)

The plant was about 1 foot high by summer, and was repotted
into Turface mix in warm weather. The two summers since
collecting have been used to begin new branching. The
tree will be a spreading, deciduous-style beast.

Good luck in your collecting.

G'day All...

Mike...why don't you enlist the help of a local club member with bougie digging
experience...maybe one for you, one for him???

Also, as someone already said, it might be good to wait until spring.

Have a good dig...

Pat
Dez of the Arizona High Dezert, at 4550', Oracle, AZ,
2000' above Tucson Sunset Zone 10 USDA Zone 8
aka: Pat Patterson 'riding off in all directions'