Keeping and growing Beautiful Bromeliads.

Bromeliads will and do grow almost anywhere, indoors or outdoors, on the mountains and even in the jungle or desert. You can’t kill them easy within reason as they are pretty hardy. They can also grow attached to a tree, like ferns in the forests, potted or in the garden. Therefore you really don’t have to be a green finger gardener to grow them.

There are over two thousand varieties of these great beauties. Often people do not realise that the most well known bromeliad is the pineapple.

The colours really are amazing even without the added feature of flowers. The flowers in some are not as visible as they sit inside the rosette of the plant, where others have a dominant protruding vibrant and colourful flower.

These are intriguing little plants. If growing them indoors they need plenty of water, with good drainage.

Separating adult plants

Soon after a plant has flowered you will notice small shoots start to grow up from beneath the mother plant. Leave these until they are approximately 4-6 inches high.

Take the plant out of garden or pot and carefully cut each baby off. Place each one in separate pots or into the garden. Press them firmly into the ground or pot. Then water each one.

Growing Bromeliads in pots

The beauty of growing these is that there are so many colours and varieties. You can pot them without soil (organic or non organic) or you can use a mixture of the two.

Remember to push the plant firmly into the pot making sure you have good drainage; do not use a saucer under the pot.

Keep the soil below the leaves as they may rot if planted deeper. I prefer to use darker coloured plastic pots (although) if they get too hot it could damage the roots. So place these ones in semi shade in the hotter months. Use a larger pot than where the leaves extend. This will allow room for the new plants to grow once the plant has flowered.

 Planting in the Garden

These plants are also happy growing in the garden.  A good place to do this is under a patio, making a feature of them in one corner.  They look great as there are so many different colours, the more variety you use the better the display looks.

You can also make a feature of these in a semi shaded position in any part of the garden or fixed onto trees or on bark hanging in a tree.

Attaching to a tree or bark

Yes you can grow these little beauties onto the sides of trees, on rocks, or driftwood pieces, in fact virtually anything at all. It will soon attach its roots to the new object.

To do this I bought some Sphagnum moss. You can use plastic covered wire or cable ties. Or thin wire.

Select where you want it then apply some sphagnum moss, then put the roots of bromeliad onto that then apply more sphagnum moss to cover roots then fix with wire or ties onto the branch or bark or even a rock. Make sure it is firmly attached to object so it won’t fall off in the wind.

Water well in the beginning, then it will need to have good drainage as it may rot if over watered.