How to Grow Bromeliads At Home

The Easiest of All Grows

The Tropical Grower is back to its roots with How to Grow Bromeliads, the easiest of all Tropical plants.  In fact, they are so easy they rival cactus for the top spot in simplest houseplants to keep alive.  Growing Tropical, you can stick them in any well draining, shady to partially shady spot, and they will thrive.  Yup, trees count.  We even have them growing in full sun.  They’re very hearty.

Most Bromeliads are easily recognizable by their tough spear shaped leaves, coming out of a center stalk which forms a ‘cup’ or ‘bowl’ in the exact center. The plant is designed to capture as much water and nutrients as possible with their leaves and funnel it into the cup for storage.  In this way, they usually have their own supply of water and nutrients.  

These are pokey things for the most part, and you’re going to want gloves to mess with them.  But they are always green, and at least once a year, they have an amazing show.  And you hardly need to mess with them at all.

Big Colorful Family

There are over 70 genera and around 3600 species of plants from the family Bromeliaceae.  Almost all are from the tropical zones in the Americas.  With few exceptions, they don’t like frost, but they do like color.  Most varieties are grown and prized for their bright colors, like most tropicals, and their uniquely interesting blooms.  

Ours are planted in groups, under and around trees, and don’t show any signs of burn from our 1 or 2 frost nights a year. The ones planted in full sun will lighten during the Spring and Summer if there isn’t much rain, or temperatures really climb, but it doesn’t seem to affect the plant or the later blooms. That being said, these are Tropical plants, and if you have frost, plant them indoors or in pots where you can move them into warmer areas during frosty times.    

Distinct ‘Look’

The most common variety most growers (and people) will recognize is the Pineapple.  Cool, right?  If you’ve ever seen a pineapple growing, it’s unmistakably a Pineapple.  The fruit grows out of the top of the plant.  You whack it off at the bottom of the Pineapple, and it’s the fruit you buy in the store.  The plant part looks like most varieties of Bromeliads as does the top of a Pineapple.

Each plant sports a big thick main root.  These can either grow in small sections or very long intertwined ones, depending on the number of plants in the area.  Each root sends up a shoot or ‘pup’.  The longer the root, the more shoots, and eventually plants, per root.  The main root either sits just below the surface of the soil or it ‘clings’ to hard surfaces with smaller hairy roots.

Air Plant Bromeliads

Not so well known are the air plants.  Air plants grow on anything, getting their nutrients and water directly from the air, and rain.  They are not parasitic, and do not generally hurt the plants they live on.  While they can grow big enough to break branches, generally, they are on the small side, and you can get them on Amazon to grow around your house.  We got a cute little Silver Sea Urchin Holder & Plant and a Wooden Silver Box & Air Plant for the fridge.

Spanish Moss is a Bromeliad and falls in this Air Plant category.  Weird, right?  Don’t wear this stuff as a hat, mites love it.  Just saying, I grew up here.  Teenagers are goofy.  The stuff looks like moss, but it’s actually strings of Bromeliad.  They cling together and drape over pretty much any hospitable surface.

We have a lovely Tillandsia Bromeliad with curly-cue leaves in Our Garden.  I picked it up on a site inspection.  It had fallen out of a dead tree and needed a new home.  Who am I to argue with fate?  It sent up its first bloom this year.  Most of its clingy brothers and sisters are probably natural compost at this point.  Yeah, yeah, I’m justifying taking it.   There were many, this bugger was toast, and I told the owner.  So . . .

Desert Varieties

Yup, there are some of these too.  We don’t grow them, but I thought I would mention they are out there.  They grow alongside succulents and cactus in arid rocky, and/or sandy environments.  They are spiny, fleshy leaf plants, quite attractive in landscaping.  Too bad I’d have to fight uphill to grow them.

One Flower and Done

Perennial Monocotyledons is just the fancy way of saying these herbaceous evergreens, while slow growing, die after they bloom and send up a shoot called a ‘pup’.  One and done.  After the bloom, or other traumatic event, the main plant will start to fall over and a new baby ‘pup’ will start to try to grow upright from the main root.  This is perfectly natural, don’t fight it. If you cut the spent bloom or yank it out, it might go again, but leaving it on the plant usually indicates to the plant it should die and send up a new shoot.

Most new Bromeliad growers believe they have done something horribly wrong.  No, you’re good.  Look for the new ‘pup’.  You’re at the end/beginning of its cycle.  Leave the ‘pup’ on the main stem, or if you want to remove, move or transplant, wait until they are ⅓ of the size of the original.  While I’ve snapped babies off and stuck them in the ground with success, play it safe if you only have one or a few.  We have many, many, many, many, and more growing everyday.  It’s pretty hearty.

Pineapples

So, in case you are wondering, yeah, Pineapples usually only grow a single fruit per plant for us here at home.  However, not only will the root send up a new, or a few new, ‘pups’, you can whack off the top of a Pineapple, the green part, and we try to leave a sliver of top, to replant.  More Pineapples.       

We had a nice crop before My Mom got sick.  They were all lost, but we started a new one this year.  I had just cleared and finished a bed for them before Hurricane Ian.  We replanted the top from one we got at the grocery store, and it is growing nicely despite my nemesis weed continuing to try to choke it out.  The long spear leaves are just starting to emerge from the top.

Helpful Tips

Remember, if you try Pineapple, it needs soil to start.  It’s one of the few Bromeliads who like a rich, super sandy soil to start, especially if it has no roots.  Think, Black Sand.  

We leave a little sliver of the top fruit so we have something to bury.  You literally want the green part sitting on top of the soil.  The sliver is for stability.  Too much fruit and you have a rotting mess right where you want roots, who hate to be wet, to form.  Not a good match-up for a successful grow.  It’s a balance, a stake can help.

Buc dog found something interesting in the new bed and knocked ours over a couple of times before I got it stabilized.  He’s our dog born a Grumpy Old Man.  We try not to discourage him from acting like a dog.

Soil

As mentioned, the air varieties need no soil to grow, the same is true for the more common terrestrial type.  It does however need support.  Generally, the terrestrial varieties will grow in or on just about anything that drains really well and doesn’t stay wet.  It doesn’t like wet roots.  If they rot, the plant will follow. 

We have whole beds of it directly planted in our Yard Sand.  After years of growth, the soil has a Black Sand quality.  So, it’s in nutrient rich sand.  There’s a bed on the Hibiscus mount with rocky, sandy soil.  It’s why Bromeliads were planted there.  The soil was never replaced like it was on the other side with Sandy Compost for vegetables.

We also have it stuck around in beds and planted in pots.  Funny thing, ours prefer to mount themselves on the outside of the pots.  They would also prefer to grow on the Kentucky Flagstone pool deck instead of in the pot.  See above, dry roots.  Can’t stop the rains, plants adapt.

Houseplants

The growing medium for houseplants is going to be much more important, and individual.  This is a situation where you should ask yourself as a grower, ‘what am I going to do?’  If you are going to water ‘the soil’, despite recommendations not to, you should not plant them in anything that will stay wet.  

Sand, of course, is probably going to be its natural soil type.  There’s rock, colorful marbles, so on and so forth.  You’re looking for stability, not actual soil.  We would probably use the Hydroponic Clay Soil, which are these round pebble rock things about the size of small marbles, My Mom uses for her orchids.  They have weight.

Soil Types

I’ve seen several recommendations for planting them in bark.   While bark is great dried out, wet bark will most likely rot your roots.  Rich, well drained soil, the standard, is going to hold too much moisture.  You should add a generous amount of sand if you’re going the soil route.  We have pots filled with Yard Sand.  

Whatever you choose, you want something dry to protect the roots.  Don’t worry, all your water and nutrients are going to go into the center cup.  They are designed that way.

It also means you can leave them for prolonged vacations if you remember to top off their cups before you go without worrying about dead plants or asking someone to come over while you’re gone.  And now you know why the popularity.  Pretty and self-reliant.

Water & Nutrients

Yes, indeed, they want water.  Whether they need it, is a different story.  Filling the cups full is all the water they need.  Period.  And, we only fertilize at Spring prep for overall health.  We use Osmocote Smart-Release Plant Food. For more on keeping a healthy garden, check out How to Prepare Your Garden for Spring. Everything else they get from the other plants in the garden through natural composting.  The center cups not only collect water, they collect leaves, sticks and other vegetation.  The big stuff I remove, but the smaller stuff makes a swampy nutritious goo in the bottom of the cups.  The plants say, yum.  

Outside

During the rainy season, the cups are constantly overflowing with daily rains.  This both provides them with all the water they could want and keeps the water in the cups from getting stagnant, growing bacteria and/or algae (although that happens, algae grows everywhere).  It’s its own little ecosystem, breaking down leaves and debris in the little filled cups.

During the dry season, the cups store water between rains.  If we see they’ve been dry for too long, we usually hit them with the hose to fill them up, but it’s rarely necessary.  They’re pretty self-sufficient.

Water Hungry, Not Heavy Drinkers

One bed has irrigation, not purposefully, I’m hitting the tree on the other side of the bed.  The outer plants slant towards the irrigation head, and the inner ones absolutely stretch leaves in weird angles towards the spray to block more water for their cups.  Water hungry, and aggressive about it.  However, the big things don’t need it. 

We’ve had plants knocked over for weeks, propped back upright, their cups filled, and they bounced right back.  They do okay without water for a bit, and when trimming back the beds, we usually have to leave them for a couple of weeks in the yard to dry out before they can be removed.  They are heavy, green and filled with water.    

Houseplants

Because you probably aren’t going to get any natural composting in the house, although you might try planting in groups, you are going to need to add a little fertilizer.  I would use a low-nutrient liquid fertilizer you drop directly into the watercan before you douse the plant.   You could also use a slow release granular fertilizer directly to the cups, we do outside.  Just make sure you get one specially formulated not to burn.  These are probably going to dissolve quickly in the water, and should be added a few at a time.

You will also need to: 
1. Change the water in their cups or, 
2. Let the cups dry out completely every few months before refilling.  
Because the cups aren’t getting their center cup water replaced daily, the water can become stagnant.  That’s just inviting bad stuff to happen inside it.  

Make Sure They’re Upright

The very most important thing to remember about growing Bromeliads is they need to be upright to keep water in their center cups.  They can slant, but they won’t do well growing sideways.  It will need to rely on its actual roots for all its water and nutrient needs.  It’s not set up for that, no matter how it tells you it wants to grow.  Fix your lighting, or its companion.

Generally, the plants are very hearty, and they will pop themselves upright to catch water.  However, beds get overcrowded and old plants sometimes are pushed over to make way for new growth.  That’s their cycle.  Watch for new ‘pups’, and see whether it’s okay for the old one to go down.    

Innovative Designs

Because these just need to be propped upright, big root covered, they are super easy to add into beds, along walks, and stuck in pots.  The circular shape helps, too. Covering whole areas has a distinctly tropical feel, they’re always green and low on maintenance.  You just have to make sure there’s plenty of clearance to walk by without getting poked.     

Last winter, I spent some time thinking about an area of My Brother’s yard in need of some vegetation.  He also has weed grass, and it was a pain to manage around 2 of his trees.  We were aiming for super low maintenance and trying to make his life easier.  The winner was a bed of solid Bromeliads because they grow in almost any soil, and he wouldn’t have to do anything to keep them alive.  He’s still claiming he’s not a grower.  

The Plus Side

The falling leaves from the trees provide nutrients, mulch and shade.  Older dying plants are just pushed between the live ones to also help form the natural mulch.  Rain provides the water.  Once he finally decides on a border, he should only have to weed occasionally and push the top layer of leaves off the plants if he wants a cleaner look. 

The Minus Side 

Currently, we are dealing with a super hot and dry Spring and no border.  Some died, and the pokey things need weeding.  In a replant of over 100 plants, some die-off is expected.  We are really waiting on the main roots to establish.  He hasn’t decided what he wants to confine them, and they have to be confined.  

Confine Beds & Multiple Plants

A border is exceptionally important if you are doing a whole bed or section of plants.  Eventually, these are going to grow outside their form, and they will need to be trimmed back.  It’s just part of growing something hearty, and really it’s all about yanking out older plants.  We eventually have to stuff them back in pots, too. 

If your border is large enough, and you remember to push over older plants, you can keep the cycle going without having to remove plants for years.  While I removed many for My Brother this winter, we hadn’t trimmed any of the beds back in about 6 years.  It was time.

Maintenance

Interestingly enough, the center cups can and will catch seeds that sprout instead of break down.  If you have climbing grasses, they will find and root into the cups.  Vines are the same.  For this reason, you will have to weed.  It helps to have some kind of a gap or border to keep grass and seeds from wandering or blowing into them.  

Since the leaves will mostly stay with the plant for its entire life, trimming consists of cutting or pulling whole plants from the main roots.  As mentioned earlier, push over plants so their center cup stops holding water.  The plant will dry out.  We just leave them there for mulch around the base of the plants or pile them until they are crispy.

Bugs

We’ve never had any problems with bugs.  While the plants have bugs live on them, in their little ecosystems, they don’t attack the plants.  I even remember an episode of ‘The Zoo’, I believe, showing tadpoles, during dry years, being born and growing in the water cups.  Super Interesting.

While I have never seen mosquito larva in the cups, it’s possible.  Maybe a one-off.  There are 2 things that don’t make this an issue.  The cups are small and mosquitoes lay lots of eggs.  Only 1 or 2 could survive in the small amount of water for each cup, and good luck with the momma making more than 1 or 2 while she’s laying. Maybe.  Any hatchlings will eat each other for the space.  

The other thing is these get pounded by water everyday when mosquitoes are laying eggs, overflowing the cups.  Larva don’t survive on the ground.

How to Grow Bromeliads At Home

We rarely even think about the Bromeliads in Our Garden.  The only days I schedule for them is clean-up with weeding, and since I practice a gap of all seeders, it isn’t often.  We had more of an issue when the grass could get into them.  Now, I put-off cleaning the tops, simply because it isn’t necessary and I have so many other things to do.  Yup, lazy.  That’s okay, you can forget about these until the big blooms start to emerge.  Then, there is no ignoring them.