Battle of the Bougainvillea

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"Bougainvillea" photographic art created using my own texture "Plum-berry Jam"
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Along the south side of the white picket fence that borders our front garden, grow a few bougainvillea plants. Every winter when the frost comes, I'm sure I've lost them but this particular one (above) has always come back even if it's had to send out shoots from the ground. When the radiating heat from the adjacent concrete driveway begins to intensify during the late spring, the bougainvillea rewards us by growing in waves and billows of tropical pinks and sherbet oranges. It reminds me of Hawai'i, icy sorbets, and things that make me happy.

The only problem is that those waves and billows also have 1 1/2 inch thorns in them AND they grow right into the driveway space where Hubby parks his car. For years, it's been an ongoing battle with the bougainvillea. I try to let it go as long as possible to get the gorgeous billows of blooms. But, eventually, Hubby starts to grumble because the long fast-growing branches are encroaching on his parking space. Then I finally acquiesce, and give it a "haircut" just as the flowers from the first bloom of the summer are fading and blowing away in the breeze like pieces of colored tissue paper.

The "haircut" never lasts very long. It always comes back and begins to impede on Hubby's car once again. This goes on repeatedly until the frost comes some time in December or January. If we didn't have a frost in the winter, it would bloom non-stop year-round. For the longest time, I've secretly felt like Hubby was happy when the winter frost would nip as the bougainvillea and make it retreat for a few months of dormancy.

This summer I finally found a solution so that Hubby and the bougainvillea could be friends. I put trellises between the picket fence and the bougainvillea so now it grows up instead of out. I don't know why I didn't think of this years ago. I guess I just didn't put my "thinking cap" on. Now I no longer have to deal with the battle of the bougainvillea.