Download Care of Bromeliad

 Care of Bromeliad 1. Water the roots only when the potting mix is totally dry! The mix will be light in color on the surface and the pot will feel very light when you lift it. Bromeliads are epiphytes; they live on tree limbs not in soil; their roots secure the plants to the limbs and have very little to do with supplying water to the upper parts of the plants. Rotting the roots by never letting them dry out will spread disease to the rest of the plant, cutting short the blooming cycle, and possibly killing the whole plant! 2. Never allow the lower leaves of a bromeliad be without standing water down in the bottoms of the leaves! Bromeliads take in water directly through the bottoms of the leaves, not so much through the root system. The best way to supply standing water to the leaves without adding water to the potting mix below is to mist the leaves with a spray bottle until water trickles down into the bottom of the leaves. It is not necessary to keep standing water in the center cup of the plant since there is a slight risk that it could rot off the stalk supporting the flowers. 3. Bromeliad plants only bloom once but produce new plants from the base, called pups, which can bloom themselves when they mature. Light is the key to getting the new plants to bloom ‐ several hours of bright filtered direct sunlight per day. They thrive outdoors under trees near the coast in filtered direct sunlight. 4. Fertilizing should be rare and only with a weak 1/4 strength solution of just about any kind of plant food. Bromeliads survive in nature on dust. The large bromeliad growing on the tree over the pool at Orchid Fever has never been fertilized (because of the fish and turtles below) and every new pup blooms when mature.