How to Prune Torch Glow

Torch Glow bougainvillea (Bougainvillea spectabilis "Torch Glow") is not your standard bougainvillea vine. While an ordinary bougainvillea's rampant growth rate takes it up the side of a house in no time, Torch Glow does not commonly reach more than 8 feet tall and is considered a shrub, rather than a vine. Hardy to U.S. Department of Agriculture planting zone 10, the plant gets its name from the way the flowers and its colorful bracts cluster at the ends of each upright stem.

Loppers
Hand pruners
Rubbing alcohol
Cloth

Instructions

- 1
  Evaluate the shape of your Torch Glow bougainvillea. When it is becoming too large for its space or has crossing branches, it is time to prune. Since bougainvillea of all types flowers only on new growth, pruning also improves flowering.
- 2
  Wipe down your loppers with rubbing alcohol and a soft cloth. Sterilizing your pruning tools decreases the chances of spreading disease among plants.
- 3
  Remove the old, dead wood down to living wood by clipping at an angle above a bud with loppers. Torch Glow bougainvillea is subject to frost damage and winter die-back, this dead wood should only be trimmed away after any danger of frost has passed.
- 4
  Cut overgrown branches off near the base throughout the growing season to control the size of this fast-growing shrub, the University of Arizona Cooperative Extension advises. Remove no more than one-third of the plant's growth at any one time when thinning to avoid sending the plant into shock.
- 5
  Pinch off 1/2-inch tips of new growth periodically throughout the season with your fingers or pruners. Multiple new shoots emerge from each pinched end. As a Torch Glow only blooms at its tips, the more new-growth shoots that develop, the more bright red-violet "torches" the shrub has in the summer.

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