What is this? Is it a flower? Is it a bush? Its... the bougainvillaea! Surely the most versatile plant on the coast of Almería. It is the ideal image for the concept of 'Mediterranean climate'. The bougainvillaea creates landscape wherever it grows.

It is drought resistent, loves hot summers, and is not at all fussy as to soil type, it manages with anything. Plant it wherever you wish, dear reader, and you will see that every season you will receive a gift directly from the gods. Bougainvillaea buttiana, bougainvillaea glabra, bougainvillaea peruviana, bougainvillaea spectabilis are some of the names of its different varieties. It reaches a height of more than ten metres. Its leaves are dark green and its flowers are ringed by 2,5 cm bracts, which are what give the bougainvillaea its colour and not its flowers. It fills any neccessity in the garden, on terraces and balconies, in any position. Some say that the plant is a climber, which it is also, others that it is a twiner or that it is a shrub; the truth is that it depends on the use we put it to. For example, a hedge of it can defend us perfectly from undesirables, its structure is extremely thorny and impossible to get through, whilst to the eye it looks like a tight wall full of friendly colour. You can also cultivate it to look like a small tree, pruning the top to whatever shape you desire and creating examples that look as though they are straight out of fairy tales.

In a large pot they can look spectacular on any terrace; up on a flat roof they can withstand very harsh conditions. In these circumstances it is advisable to prune them as you would a grape vine to get a good effect, and, above all, make sure that the flower pots are well secured to avoid them falling off the roof which could have fatal results. A white wall with a single bougainvillaea growing along it always looks very effective and makes even the most solitary place look inhabited.

The variety of colours is as wide as the many shapes and uses that can be made of the plant. At the present time horticulturalists are cultivating plants of about four dozen different colours: purple, deep violet, pale pink, white, blood red, orange... I can't give names to all the colours of these petals which look like paper!

Fernando Valero
Illustration: Artola