Are bromeliads good house plants, I know they do very well in Greenhouses, but inside the house I never had one.
Some are really good. Like anything, it depends. I have neoregelias and billbergias that I would not bring indoors, but smaller vrieseas and tillandsias do fine in the right location. Some Tillandias will be sold as air plants. Not really accurate for amateur plant keepers, but a spray of water every now and then may keep them looking good for a long time. You can find them hotglued to shells or bark or driftwood. I've wired them into carved out hollows in clean driftwood and hung them on patio walls. I'm more likely to put them on trees in my yard, though. My vrieseas were planted in coffee cups when I got them. Now they are too big and in the ground, but they lived in those cups for over a year. One thing people don't understand about broms is that they don't really need to have their vases filled all the time, especially if they have some roots. Another caution is people think they are dying when it's just the mother plant dying away while pups are growing.
The one I saw around years before others appeared at general outlets was Aechmea fasciata. It must be pretty willing. I had a Cryptanthus for a fairly long time.
My mother kept them for a long while, something she always did when replanted a brom, she will place an apple in the bottom of the pot and then she will put some dirt on it, and on top the plant. Do you have any idea why she was doing this? She explained to me but I was a child and I don't really remember.
I'm not sure what the purpose of putting apple in the pot under the potting soil would be, but I'd bet it had to do with the ethylene a rotting apple gives off. Some people will put apples whole or cut up right with a brom to induce blooming. I've never done it, but thanks for the reminder. I have a Tillandsia utriculata that could use some encouragement.
Ethylene is a plant hormone according to Wikipedia, not necessarily the best resource on all topics. Take it with a grain of Miracle-Gro. The effect of spoiling apples on bromeliad blooms may be accurate or not. I haven't tried it myself, but am thinking of doing it for the tillandsias I mentioned. No scientific rigor here, and we are just coming into the season when I expect to see Tillandsia spp. blooming anyway. Most broms are epiphytes. A spoiling apple is not going to do much for the plant at the minimal root system, and may actually be deleterious by promoting insect and rodent activity. Just my thoughts on it.
Guzmania,Nidularria,Tillandsia,Aechema,Neoregelias,Vreisea, all do quite well in my house, I place them outside for the summer and bring them back in before the frost. The Guzmanias can take quite low light, and some of the others I have as hanging baskets.
I cannot tell you the exact science behind it but for bromeliads once the flower is dead you should cut it right below the flower and dispose of the dead flower. After a year or so wrap the entire plant in plastic and you can cut an apple and put it at the bottom of the bag. The ethelyne will produce a new flower but it can take up to a month for it to produce the flower. I have never heard of putting the apple in the bottom of the soil though. I have had bromeliads for years and I have done this process a few times. Just make sure any exposed soil is covered in case the dying apple produces gnats(they love moist soil as much as dead fruit).
After a year or so it will be time for the next cycle of flowering to occur anyway. If there is a possibility of berries that could be used for ornament or propagation after flowering it might be preferable to leave the otherwise spent inflorescence on awhile. In nature flowered rosettes collapse into a pile of compost around which the same slowly creeping rootstock makes new rosettes that flower in turn when mature.
It takes longer then a month. Once the rosette looks like it is fully dead chop it off and enjoy the plant as a leafy green. If you give it a decent amount of filtered or non-direct light it will sprout babies. After about a year after chopping the rosette off you can do the bag method and it will grow another rosette. This is not an exact science though, some will flower without this method. I have a friend who has a sun room and she has one of these in there with a pink flower. It falls off every year and about 9 months later one grows back. On the otherhand one of mine simply will nto flower, the others will with usign the bag method. Sadly it is a hit or miss. Still, do not throw them away when the rosette is gone! They will propogate more plants that you can pull off(when they are 7 inches or larger) and you can plant those. They are wonderful plants, easy to take care of with plenty of sun and beautiful when they flower! What I do is I keep them as parent plants for a few years then end up killing the ones that won't flower and put it's "children" in its pot. The nice thing is if you have a large pot you can put a bunch in there because they have very small root growths on them and do well together. just remember to give them growing room because they do get big :-)
