I got this Bromeliad and the top was orange now it is yellow and tips of brown am I killing this are there any sticky that would help me
Dimmer
Is there something wrong here
Your bromeliad is undergoing its normal life cycle. The inflorescence (the orange part) eventually dies off. Some people cut them off eventually, but I think yours still has a nice shape to it. If you look at the base of the plant, you should see where it's making more little plants (we call them pups). In looking at your picture I'd say the front of your plant looks like it has a few new ones started. Once the pups get big enough, you can divide them from the mother plant (I literally just pull them apart, but a sterile knife would be a good idea). Then, the new plants will get big and bloom orange all over again. And so on...
I have a question along the same lines... Once the mother plant blooms and you seperate the pups out will the mother plant in fact die? What if you leave the pups attached?
OH MY Gosh That is so easy And I think that I have alot of new one lets see I have 3 new ones now about a month ago I put it in a new pot nad I took part of one and planted it I have no idea if it has roots on it but here is a picture of it
You can leave the pups attached or remove them. On Guzmanias like yours, the pups are not stoloniferous and you have to be careful to cut the pup off retaining just a bit of the woody part of the mother plant . By gently prying the pup off-center, it will be easier to see where to cut. As long as there is a bit of the woody part at the base of the pup it will root fairly easily. You can often see the bud-like beginnings of roots at the base of the pups.
Bromeliads are strongly non-branching by nature. The single growing point supresses the "breaking" of axial buds until it decides to change into blooming mode. Then the axial buds are free to grow forming the pups.
Dave.
Spelling corrected - I are an Electrical Engineer! LOL
This message was edited May 1, 2007 5:07 PM
Glad I could help! By the way, bromeliads don't tend to have deep roots or many of them, so don't worry too much about that. In fact, some of the bromeliads use their roots solely to attach themselves to things like tree branches. They get their nutrition mostly through what falls in the middle of them. As long as you keep a little water in their middle, they're happy. I think whether the mother plant will die varies according to the plant. I have some that died off after they pupped, and I have some that have pupped, and pupped, and pupped, and are still sitting there like nothing happened. Or, you can leave the pups attached and they'll just form a thick clump. My neighbor had some bromeliads against a fence that he did this with. They make a nice little hedge that way. Every now and then you'll just have to pull out any dead leaves from the mother plant (they come out real easy, you shouldn't have to tug very hard).
Thank you for your help... I have learned alot. Earlier when I was asking abot the glueing... They had glued it to some kind of plastic container... there was nothing for the roots to even cling to... I thought about ripping it out to try to save it but I didn't know if I could cause more harm than good.
I've noticed some garden centers have pretty bromeliad arrangements, but I never thought about them glueing them in. I have some tillandsias glued to driftwood on my desk at work and they're happy. The glue is just to hold them in place until their roots attach themselves. Sometimes you can just tie them on if you don't want to use glue. If you want to remove it, I'd say try to gently see if you can scrape some glue away and get it free. Don't force anything though! Bromeliads overall are tough, but you'd be surprised how easy you can break some tillandsias.