Bromeliad help needed.

Squash Blossom · Post by **Squash Blossom** » Sep 04, 2004 7:13 pm

I need advice!! Today a friend presented me with a small pot of bromeliads - a small pot, bromeliads almost growing on top of each other, 4 in full bloom, and probably 12-15 stalks in this one small clay pot. The plant can't even stand upright without help.

I have never owned a bromeliad but would love to try to divide this tangled mess and try to improve this situation.

Can anyone advise me how to separate these plants, what kind of soil to use, and any other pertinent information.

The blooms are gorgeous - hot pink and I think they're just now opening. There is a lot of potential here but I don't know how to proceed.

Ann

Newt · Post by **Newt** » Sep 04, 2004 10:08 pm

Hi Ann,
Great gift. This site should do it.

http://www.heirloomgardenexperts.com/in ... eliads.htm

Newt

Squash Blossom · Post by **Squash Blossom** » Sep 04, 2004 11:49 pm

Thanks Newt,

I was hoping to possibly tackle this project tomorrow. I had checked a couple of websites but couldn't find anything about repotting.

Ann

Newt · Post by **Newt** » Sep 05, 2004 12:18 am

Ann, I did a search at www.google.com and put in the search box:
repot bromeliad
and found this site. Scroll down about 3/4 of the way to:
'Get It Growing'
'Brilliant Bromeliads Easy to Grow'
and you will see the below quote.
http://www.bsi.org/webpages/BRBS/04-05.html

"Because most bromeliads have rather limited root systems, they generally are grown in pots that are somewhat small for the size of the plant. Clay or plastic pots are equally satisfactory. But clay pots are more stable because of their weight and may be better for plants that tend to be top heavy."

Enjoy,
Newt

Squash Blossom · Post by **Squash Blossom** » Sep 05, 2004 7:43 pm

Newt,

I think that last article actually is the best - AND - it was written by the LSU Ag. Center horticulturist.

I wish I had a digital camera and could share a picture of this monstrous conglomeration of plants. The person who brought it to me found it being discarded after a neighborhood garage/plant sale and to see the blooms on this poor bedraggled plant tell me this is a "survivor". This plant has led a hard life but the blooms are breathtaking.

I never got to my project today. Sundays seldom go the way I plan but next week I intend to possibly pot as many as 8-10 "pups" off the one or two main plants which are almost dead. The foliage is broken and torn, the water reservoirs are backed with acorns and Lord only knows what else, but I'm tickled to death to have the plant/plants. I like a challenge!

On the subject of Google, for someone who fought tooth and toenail against ever having a computer, didn't want one, didn't have a place for one, and couldn't possibly use one, I have certainly come to depend on the Internet almost on a daily basis. Now I can't imagine being without a computer.

Ann

Newt · Post by **Newt** » Sep 05, 2004 8:05 pm

Ann, I would love to see some pictures!! Your plants sound so wonderful and fascinating. Have you been able to id which ones they are?

I know what you mean about computers. I only knew how to turn them on and off and how to dust them because of my son's passion for them as he was growing up. Then he grew up, got a job in South America and bought me one for Christmas so we could communicate. It has opened up the world for me!!

Last year he bought me a digital camera and it's been fantastic!! I hardly ever go out into the garden without my camera. Have you seen this lovely visitor to my garden?

viewtopic.php?p=243729&highlight=#243729

Glad I could help!!
Newt

Squash Blossom · Post by **Squash Blossom** » Sep 06, 2004 1:08 pm

Honestly, I would frame a picture like that! I'm so camera-challenged that I honestly have a mental block about trying to take pictures. I've probably got 10 miles of video taken of my garden and my pugs but I do a horrible job with a regular camera. I bought my daughter a digital camera in June thinking she'd teach me how to use it and I'd simply borrow hers. NOT!! She's too busy enjoying it herself for me to disturb her.

My only "child" is a 36-year old graphic designer/computer specialist here in Shreveport. Back in the 90's I almost felt like I was being harrassed by Denise's insistance that I get a computer but I eventually thought the case was closed.

Then one day she drove up and started unloading box after box in the driveway and I knew I'd been had!

Sure enough, here was an old cast-off computer she didn't want along with everything imaginable in the way of supplies, etc.

I didn't even have a desk or table so she left all this junk sitting on the floor of my sewing room...where it sat undisturbed for weeks. Finally I realized I was hurting her feelings and decided to at least set the equipment up for a few weeks and then I'd get rid of it.

So, I bought a cheap computer desk and we got everything hooked up...I didn't even know I had to have some kind of Internet Provider until Denise called one day at noon, said she was coming at 5:30 to give me a "lesson" and I'd better be connected to the Internet when she got here. My little girl THREATENED ME!!

I called a local IP service, quickly named myself after my oldest pug, Rosebud, and waited in dread for Computer 101 at 5:30 P.M.

When Denise arrived, after way too much technical instruction, I thought I was off the hook. Then, getting rather perturbed with me again, she asked what two things would I like to know more about and I flippantly said "Chinese Pugs" AND "Geraniums"!!

The minute I discovered my first search engine I was hooked!! I used to be Barnes & Noble's #1 customer but not anymore!! Denise is one of those people you ask what time it is and they tell you how to build a clock!! I've managed to teach myself enough to help administer an international pug website and do just about whatever I want to do online. I guess it's time to step up to bat again and get a digital camera.

Ann

petal*pusher · Post by **petal*pusher** » Sep 12, 2004 1:11 pm

Hi Squash! Just noticed this thread!

We have a large collection of bromeliads at the school greenhouse. Each year, the students get to pick one variety of tropical plant to be their own personal project.....I always watch to see WHO gets the bromeliads.....this year was a shy young man.

Last year, the student who "had" them decided to do some unusual plantings. Since they are an epiphyte.....usually grow in tree tops in the Rain Forest.....they don't really need soil......she found some great ways to show off their beauty!

First, those little fellas sprouting from the sides (without blossoms) are called "pups"......and will eventually need to be divided from the parent plant. The blossoming plant will die after it's done blooming. They are an easy plant to grow.....when watering, make sure to add some to the very middle of the cupped plant leaves.....some call this a "vase plant". (In the Rain Forest, there may even be polywogs living in the center of these plants!)

Anyhooo......we took a huge grapevine wreath.....carefully wired on a few large handfuls of wet sphagnum moss (Spanish moss would work too) and wired in some of the pups in clusters. It was easy to keep watered....and looked great hanging upright. Driftwood, monkey-pod bowls....lots of "natural stuff" could be used. Just make sure you have the moss anchored on the item......and carefully wire on the bromeliad. Hope this gave you a couple ideas!......p

Squash Blossom · Post by **Squash Blossom** » Sep 15, 2004 11:36 pm

That's a neat idea using the grapevine wreath. I actually use a lot of grapevine in my yard. I "unroll" wreaths and tack it to fences for vines to trail on.

I actually have pretty well figured out how to use my daughter's digital camera. I initially took 7 pictures - then accidently deleted them. Then I took one more, an old tricycle I found in a neighbor's curbside trash - now it's my favorite objet' d'art.

My gardening activities have been somewhat sidelined the past week or so...first one thing and then another, then this morning I got stung by 4 wasps. I was pulling a small clematis vine off a birdhouse and didn't realize there were 50-million wasps in the birdhouse!!

Everyone in Louisiana is watching the weather tonight but I'm really anxious to get back to diggin' in the dirt!

Ann

Newt · Post by **Newt** » Sep 16, 2004 1:58 pm

Oh, Ann!! I hope you will be ok - from the wasps and from Ivan. One of my girls lives in New Orleans and had to evacuate. Her husband works for the parish and had to stay behind. Thank goodness that New Orleans didn't get a direct hit. I would have hated to go down Bourbon Street in a boat!

Be safe,
Newt

Squash Blossom · Post by **Squash Blossom** » Jul 14, 2006 9:40 am

This original thread is almost two years old but I have a bit of a strange update. Back when I originally asked what to do with my horrendously overgrown little pot of bromelliads, Newt directed me to the site about separating the plants and repotting, which I very carefully followed thru with.

I think it takes at least two years before the second generation plants may bloom.

Well, one year after I repotted the individual "pups", they had outgrown those pots and I was out of space to sit them on the greenhouse benches. I decided to move each plant to yet a larger pot and I found some big plastic hanging baskets that had hangers I could remove easily if and when I ever wanted to bring a blooming plant inside the house.

I ordinarily use fresh potting soil everytime I repot but when I transplanted the bromelliads the second time, I ran out of new soil, time and energy and finished off the last three or four plants with soil still in the pots from last summer's tomato plants.

Yep! I have got Pink Brandywine tomatoes on the most beautiful vines you have ever seen...growing out of my vigorously healthy bromelliads. We have not made one attempt to treat these volunteer tomato plants with the TLC we shower on the tomatoes we planted in the spring...and yet they are absolutely beautiful plants, covered with young tomatoes.

What's even more unusual is in 2-3 of the hanging baskets (which incidently are sitting on the retaining wall around our patio) there are app. 2-4 volunteer tomato vines streaming out of each basket...all happily co-mingling with the bromelliads, fern, English Ivy, and plumbago ! It's a rather strange conglomeration of growth, but it's working too well to try to change anything at this point.

Another odd twist to this story is the Pink Brandywine tomatoes are growing in heavy shade most of the day.

Ann

Newt · Post by **Newt** » Jul 14, 2006 11:35 am

Hi Ann,

What a wonderful update! It's heartwarming to know that the info I share with people is helpful and is so long lasting. Btw, how do those tomatoes taste?

Newt

Squash Blossom · Post by **Squash Blossom** » Jul 14, 2006 1:19 pm

Hi Newt,

We haven't harvested any of the volunteer tomatoes, probably because they are in so much shade. They'll ripen eventually though.

Our container-grown tomatoes are putting on a show right now, producing all the tomatoes we can use and give away. We're growing them on 10 ft. arches and this morning had to get out a ladder to pick some Grape Tomatoes that are probably 12 ft. - 13 ft. tall and still producing like crazy.

It is miserably hot here - the heat index was 112-115 yesterday and I guess that's what tomatoes like.

The bromelliads could not be any healthier. The foliage on every plant is so dark and I know they'll bloom sooner or later!!

Newt · Post by **Newt** » Jul 14, 2006 1:33 pm

Ann, it amazes me what and how things grow in your state. I was in New Orleans in February and was tickled to see iris and hibiscus blooming! Actually, it was wonderful to see anything blooming at all considering the devistation of Katrina and Rita. I hope to return again soon as part of my heart is still there!

How far are you from NOLA? I do hope you weren't effected by all that. I've seen enough of it to last a lifetime!

Newt

Squash Blossom · Post by **Squash Blossom** » Jul 14, 2006 6:34 pm

I'm a long way from New Orleans; I'm as far north in Louisiana as anyone can be and not be in East Texas. I get my hair cut in Texas!

I think it's a 15 mile drive.

We're in Zone 8 and the past two winters have been so mild that my plumbago survived outside last year, my geraniums thrived until probably the first of January, etc. We're paying the price now though, it is unbearably hot and humid.

Shreveport played a big role helping New Orleans evacuees last year, people and pets. That was really something; we'd all heard forever that someday New Orleans might flood...but I don't think anyone ever imagined the scope of the disaster when it finally happened.

Ann

Newt · Post by **Newt** » Jul 14, 2006 8:38 pm

Ann, I know exactly where you are. I have a foster daughter who just moved to Florida from Ida and lived in Natchitoches and New Orleans before that. I've visited there. What a small world we live in.

I'm sure there are still NOLA evacuees in Shreveport. It's a very sad situation and I wish I didn't need to go back under the current circumstances. I took a peek at your Website and that is why I went to NOLA twice, to do animal rescue. An even smaller world!

Newt