Patience. You need patience with bromeliads. Now, for the first time since 2015, our bromeliad plants (achmea fasciata) have flowered here in Kettle’s Yard. The bromeliad plants can be found amongst the other plants in the upstairs extension.
During the first Covid lockdown in 2020, I took a cutting from the main plant, taking an ‘offset’ that the plant had developed, and dropping it into a specialist bromeliad compost. Then I waited. It’s taken three years, during which the original small cutting has developed new leaves and finally, a flower.
Strictly speaking, what we first see is a ‘bract’, a collection of modified leaves, pink in this case; a little horticultural firework. The true flowers appear a little later as blue and purple buds between the pink leaves. The bract will last for a couple of months, the flowers only for a few days.
But each ‘vase’ of the bromeliad will only flower once. After that they should throw out an offset (or ‘pup’) which, in the fullness of time, should develop its own flower.
Visit the Kettle’s Yard house to see the bromeliad plants. Book your visit here.
