These fascinating plants are
among the most exotic houseplants a gardener can grow and also among the easiest.
Not a genus in themselves, but a large group of
genera they include Aechmea, Billbergia, Cryptanthus, Dyckia, Guzmania,
Neoregelia, Nidularium, Tillandsia and a number of others. Bromeliads come from
the jungles of South America. Some are terrestrial, but many are air plants (epiphytes)
living high up in the trees without any soil and taking nourishment only from whatever
organic matter washes their way. They are not parasitic and do not draw
nourishment from the trees themselves. Tree growing bromeliads catch rainwater in
cuplike urns of leaves.
Bromeliads are grown mainly for
their spectacular flowers, but the leaves are often particularly handsome too.
A typical bromeliad has a rosette of leaves, sometimes soft and green,
sometimes stiff and spiky with variegated markings. A flower stalk usually emerges from the
center of the rosette. The showiness of these flowers really lies in the brilliantly
colored bracts that surround them, though the tinier flowers are also
beautiful. A plant blooms only once, but the flower is often extraordinarily
long lasting, and bromeliad plants readily produce offshoots. You may remove
these from the mother plant and report them or cut out the spent mother plant
and let the cluster of new ones bloom together.
If you are looking for a
bromeliad to start with try Aechmea fasciata. You might find itmarketed under
various names such as “urn plant” or “silver vase”, but you will recognize it
by its vase of stiff, tooth-edged green leaves, marked horizontally with silver
bands. The flower spike has toothed bracts of a bright pink color; little
blue-purple flowers nestle among pink spikes.
Best of all, this colorful
spectacle lasts about six months. The plant grows 1 to 2 feet tall. Another
gorgeous long blooming bromeliad is Guzmania
lingulata, which is about the same size, with long green, strap like
leaves sometimes striped with purple and a red-orange cluster of bracts
enclosing white flowers from late winter or summer. Bromeliads with stiff,
variegated leaves like good, bright light and often will take some direct sun
but don’t expose them to strong midday sun in summer those with softer, green
leaves are fairly shade tolerant.
They do well under artificial
lights. They are happiest in warm rooms 65-75 degrees at night even lower from
Aechmea fasciata. Give them humid air and a very light, porous organic soil or
soilless mix remembers that May bromeliads are air plants and their roots don’t
normally grow in soil. Some gardeners grow the ephiphytic types on pieces of
tree branch wrapped in moistened sphagnum moss, but a shallow clay pot will do
fine.
You can allow the top inch or so of the pot to
dry out between watering (overwatering can lead to fungus diseases), but always
keep the cup inside the leaves filled with water. Feed lightly a balanced
liquid fertilizer at half the suggested strength added to the soil and cup once
a month in spring and summer is about right. Propagate by dividing offsets with
a knife and repotting them.
