Bromeliads bringing the tropics indoors
The bromeliads are a fascinating group of plants with sometimes wonderfully patterned leaves and long lasting spectacular flowers.
Often grown outside in the more tropical parts of the North Island they are really only suitable for indoor culture elsewhere. Luckily for Nelsonians they are one of the easiest and most spectacular of indoor plants.
In the wild, bromeliads grow almost entirely in the Americas with just one out of more than 3000 species coming from West Africa.
They grow in a wide range of habitats many perching as epiphytes in the tropical rain forest, high up in the trees as they like quite bright light but not too much direct sunshine.
Unfortunately the clearance of much tropical rain forest has lead to many species becoming rare while others are probably extinct before being known to science. In the southern United States the bromeliad Tillandsia festoons trees and even power wires.
The most common one is known as Spanish Moss. The most commonly grown genera of bromeliads are Aechmea, Bilbergia, Cryptanthus, Guzmania,
Nidularium,
Vriesia.
Bromeliads have a small root system and can be grown in quite small pots which need to be heavy enough to be stable. They must have perfect drainage and good air circulation.
The potting mix should be quite coarse, emulating the detritus which occurs in the crotch of branches where they grow in the wild. A commercial orchid mix is a good starting point or you can make your own using equal quantities of bark chips, leaf mould, and very coarse sand or perlite.
They do not need much fertiliser to keep them healthy - a light feed of Nutricote or a dilute liquid fertiliser in the plant’s growing season. I once grew a selection of bromeliads on a large Dicksonia ponga stump. Smallish pockets were cut out and filled with a potting mix then planted, where they did very well and it looked quite amazing.
Because they mostly grow in a very humid atmosphere, indoor grown bromeliads will benefit from a spray of tepid water every so often. In the wild the bases of the leaves and centre of the plant are often water filled and even Neoregelia, Tillandsia and become the homes of frogs and land crabs. The optimum growing temperatures for indoor cultivation is between 16 degrees at night and 23 degrees during the day.
After a very long-lasting flowering the plant will very slowly waste away and die, but not before sending up small offshoots from around the base.
These are known as ‘‘pups’’ and after growing a rosette of leaves they can be separated from the old parent plant, by cutting them off as near to the old stem as possible and repotting. Sometimes they don’t have any roots but will develop their own fairly quickly if looked after and kept moist.
Bromeliads suffer from few diseases and pests making them the ideal houseplant.