I love bougainvillea, a showy tropical plant that thrives everywhere on Kauai....

Driving from the airport to Lihue, the county seat of Kauai, sometimes I would see a dazzling display of bougainvillea along roadsides. Whenever I am in the Lihue Shopping Center, I see bougainvillea again trained into tree form, blooming profusely in multiple colors to dress up the asphalt-covered parking lot.

With blissfully warm and sunny days and cool nighttime temperatures almost year round, Kauai has the perfect climate to grow the Brazil native. Bougainvillea is versatile in the way it can be grown. A friend of mine living in Kekaha, a town with the driest weather of the whole island, grows her bougainvillea as an espalier against a wall of her house. Her climbing vine is so tall and vigorous that part of the exterior of her house is now draped with cascades of bougainvillea, an endless display of flamboyant blooms that captures the hearts of passersby.

While some of my friends grow bougainvilleas in hedges, others contain their plants in pots. I have also seen bougainvilleas spilled over fences or pruned   to an umbrella shape.Many years ago I decided to try my hand at growing the evergreen plant. I bought several varieties of bougainvillea from a nursery and put them in  planting holes spaced roughly four feet apart. Allowed to spread out on the ground, these perennials have grown extensively to cover a   large area of my front yard, their rich blazing colors greeting neighbors walking by.

Growing up in Hong Kong, I assumed that the bright colors of bougainvillea were flowers. Then one day I noticed a subtle change in my plants. On the ends of new growth appeared leaves that were bi-colored. These modified leaves would eventually turn into large, colorful paper-like bracts encircling inconspicuous true flowers that are small, white and trumpet-shaped.

As plants that prefer to be neglected, bougainvilleas are easy to grow. Watering and fertilizing infrequently, lots of sun and heat are the key to sturdy growth and exuberant blooms of these tropical plants.

On a sunny morning, when I look out my kitchen window, I would see clusters of single and double flower forms in brilliant colors.   My front yard awash with color has  an uplifting impact on my neighbors. Children often linger for a   while near the blooming bougainvilleas after they get off the school bus at a  stop down the street.  Paper thin and fluttering slowly to the ground, naturally air dried bougainvillea blooms are popular as confetti thrown at weddings.   Sometimes my neighbor living across the street would knock on the door and ask if she  could have some blooms for making leis or for use as confetti. She broke into a smile as I said yes.

"But be careful," I reminded  her. "Don't get pricked by the thorns when you pick flowers."

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