Bougainvillea in Bondage (Photos)

When we  flew to Mulege, Baja Mexico last month, we saw many lovely bougainvillea vines in full bloom, some trained as small trees with trunks often a foot or more wide. I decided to convert my backyard Barbara Karst Bougainvillea into a small tree. This
will give us a red flowering canopy in the summer and, as the vines grow thicker and develop bark, should also protect the tropical plant against the short winter freezes we get here in San Jose, California. This also allowed us to remove the garden fence which is no longer needed because we replaced our pool with WP668, our backyard caboose.

I started with the vine spread out along a black metal garden fence. Over two days, I compressed the thorny vines into a column using green plastic garden tape. Finally, I enclosed the compressed vines between three black metal panels which are zip tied together. (I removed the garden tape after enclosing the vines between the panels.) My vine is now a 6′ column with a fountain of vines coming out the top. It looks squashed at the moment but it is growing fast. Here is how far I have gotten on this project:

Images Copyright 2007-2008 by Katy Dickinson