In The Garden
I liked like to know if I can successfully grow my potted bromeliads indoors. I like how they look and that they are hardy and need minimal care and attention, but don’t want to bring them inside if it means they’ll die.
Sarah, Glass House Mountains
Well Sarah, bromeliads can make excellent indoor plants.
They have colorful, long-lasting inflorescence (flowers) and some have brilliantly colored foliage as well – perfect to brighten up our spaces.
Bromeliads also readily adapt to the unfavorable growing conditions that exist in most homes. But they’ll need good indirect light and protection from extremes – like the drying effects of a heater or air conditioning.
Although many bromeliads are epiphytic, living on branches and trunks of trees or on rocks in their native habitat, most can be grown in containers – like you’re doing in pots.
Clay and plastic pots are equally satisfactory as containers unless plants are large, in which case the heavier clay pot is more stable. Because plastic pots retain moisture longer than clay pots, plants grown in the former need watering less frequently than those in the latter.
I like to grow mine in a black plastic pot, which I put inside a nice decorative one to hide it.
Because bromeliads rarely have extensive roots, relatively small pots are adequate for most plants. Older plants do not have to be moved into larger pots until their roots completely fill the current container.
For young bromeliads, it’s best to move them up one pot size larger every spring, until the maximum convenient pot size has been reached – rather than putting them immediately into a larger pot.
Most bromeliads may grow poorly if planted in a conventional potting mixture. They grow best in a free draining mix such as an orchid mix and a potting mix combined together in equal parts.
If you’d like to grow an epiphytic bromeliads onto a structure – like a piece of tree fern stem or a piece of wood, you can and it will be OK inside too.
To mount a plant on one of these materials, wrap the base of the plant (including roots, if any) in sphagnum moss, and tie the wrapped base to its support by winding plastic-coated wire around the moss and the supporting material. Fasten the ends of the wire firmly but in such a way that it can be easily untied.
Hang the mounted specimens in a convenient place outside under cover. Spray the sphagnum moss and plant with water frequently enough to prevent complete drying of the moss.
After supportive roots grow over the sphagnum moss and around the mount, remove the temporary wire. You can then bring it inside.
To keep the plant alive and healthy, water the plant, its roots, and the supportive materials twice weekly throughout the year. Water can be applied as a spray or the entire mounted plant can be submerged in water for a few minutes.
The humidity around plants will influence their need for water. The humidity in a home which is heated during the winter months or cooled with air-conditioning during the summer months can be very low and plants may need to be watered more frequently than those grown in a moist environment.
But if it’s the flowers rather than the leaves you’re interested in, remember that once they’ve flowered, that plant won’t flower again. So take it outside into a pleasant part of your garden and it’ll become a maternity plant from which you can take new pups and grow new potted bromeliads.
Thanks for your question Sarah, and happy gardening
