Hello!

We got some plants from Home Depot today. They were marked simply
"bromeliads". By browsing some pictures on the Web, I'm guessing two of
them are Guzmania and one is Vriesea.

Several sources say that we should water these plants in their "cup" or
"bowl". That's fine. What is not clear is whether we should also water
the soil. Some people say that watering will cause rotting.
A book (Better Homes and Gardens Complete Guide to Gardening)
says to "Keep evenly moist". What does that mean?

Also, when should we re-pot them?

Thank you very much!

--

Ted Shoemaker


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On Sun, 16 Feb 2003 00:10:18 GMT, Ted Shoemaker
wrote:

We got some plants from Home Depot today. They were marked simply
"bromeliads". By browsing some pictures on the Web, I'm guessing two of
them are Guzmania and one is Vriesea.

Several sources say that we should water these plants in their "cup" or
"bowl". That's fine. What is not clear is whether we should also water
the soil. Some people say that watering will cause rotting.
A book (Better Homes and Gardens Complete Guide to Gardening)
says to "Keep evenly moist". What does that mean?

Also, when should we re-pot them?

I've had pretty good luck with the 'vase' (cup/bowl) watering only.
Most bromeliads are essentially tropical 'air plants' that naturally
root on a tree's bark. The roots, such as they are, *are* prone to
rotting in damp conditions. One usually re-pots the baby (babies)
that spring up around the base of the plant after it blooms. It's a
very slow process, but the main plant only blooms once (someone's now
going to post about a multi-blooming B., but in general, this is
true), sends out one or more descendents, and begins to wither. After
a while, this is pretty obvious, and the babies can be pulled off and
potted.