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Here’s What to Do When Your Bromeliad Flower Is Turning Brown

Here’s What to Do When Your Bromeliad Flower Is Turning Brown

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With their colorful leaves and tall, slender stems, it’s no wonder bromeliad flowers have a lot of fans. These slow-growers are popular indoor plants, but they tend to have some common issues like all plants. For example, they sometimes start turning brown. 

Before you get stressed, you should know that it’s normal for bromeliad flowers to turn brown when they’re getting near the end of their life cycle. It doesn’t mean you did anything wrong; their life expectancy is just running out.

No matter how you care for it, you won’t be able to keep a bromeliad flower going indefinitely. Once the flower has started to turn brown, the best thing to do is to go ahead and cut it off.

Here’s everything you need to know about the matter:

Why Cutting Off Browning Flowers Is the Right Call

Bromeliad Flower With Brown Tips

Cutting off the browning bromeliad flower is always the right call to make. The brown color is a signal that the plant is moving into a new phase. It’ll start producing pups, which, in turn, will grow into your new bromeliad plants.

Your focus should shift over to nurturing this new generation of bromeliads for your garden. Cutting off the browning flower allows your plant to focus on giving energy to the new pups.

It’s a cycle of life that you have to accept if you’re going to grow bromeliads in your home or outdoors in your garden area.

What Leaving the Brown Flowers Can Do to the Plant

It can be pretty hard for a plant lover to say goodbye to a flower, especially when it’s as captivating as a bromeliad. However, leaving the brown flowers on your bromeliad plant can have detrimental effects on its health.

Firstly, the brown flowers will ruin the aesthetics, and you’ll lose the beautiful appeal of your plant. On top of that, the flowers will keep the pups in the shade because the light won’t pass through. This prevents the pups from growing, which means you won’t be getting a new flower soon.

Lastly, leaving the brown flowers intact can attract mites and pests, increasing the plant’s vulnerability to diseases. It’s better to remove them as fast as you can to leave some room for your new flowers to grow.

The best way to remove a bromeliad flower is to use a very sharp blade. Before using it, make sure it’s sterilized and clean to avoid infecting the plant.

When cutting the flower, make sure to cut it cleanly and as close to the plant as you can. Having a clean and close cut will do as little harm to the plant as possible. 

When you remove the bloom, you can dispose of it how you see fit. Some people will merely throw it away while others might use it as compost.

What to Do After Removing the Flower

After cutting the dying flower, your bromeliad plant will now produce pups, and you’ll want to care for them as well as you can during this time.

Firstly, you should identify the bromeliad pups so that you can remove them from the mother plant when the time is right. Then, you’ll be potting these pups and caring for them just as you did your original bromeliad plant. 

They’ll eventually grow to replace it, but you should probably know that bromeliads are slow growers, so you’ll need to have patience.

Tips for Caring for Bromeliad Plants

If you’re going to take care of these new pups, you’ll need to know what you’re doing. Otherwise, they may not grow into the beautiful slender flowers you’re waiting for.

Here are a few tips to follow:

Give Them Bright, Indirect Sunlight

Bromeliad In Sunlight

If you want the bromeliad plants to do well, it’s going to be crucial to provide them with the right lighting.

Bromeliad plants thrive when they’re placed somewhere that they can receive bright light. It’s best to give them indirect lighting so that they won’t be damaged by the sun.

When you’re keeping them indoors, it’s going to be ideal to keep them near a window but away from direct sunlight. If you’ve planted them outdoors, it’s best to put them somewhere where they will get a lot of indirect sunlight.

Just be mindful of the placement of these plants and you should be just fine.

Outdoor Bromeliads Need to Be in a Tropical Climate

It’s important to understand that bromeliads need to be in a tropical climate if you’re going to be keeping them outdoors.

You shouldn’t be planting these in your outdoor gardens if your climate isn’t right for these plants. You’re just going to watch them die and they likely won’t live long enough to produce pups.

If you live in a colder climate and want to keep bromeliad plants, you should definitely keep them indoors. Most people choose to keep these plants indoors anyway but it’s important to make this distinction for someone who might be new to these plants.

Now that you know that they’re meant for tropical climates, you can make your own decisions.

If you want the bromeliad plants to do well, you need to provide them with the right lighting.

Bromeliad plants thrive when they receive bright, indirect light. Keep in mind that too much sunlight may burn their leaves, so it’s better to keep them near a window but away from direct sunlight.

Maintain a Tropical Climate

If you’re growing your bromeliads outdoors, you need to provide them with a tropical climate. They need to stay in a temperature from 60F to 85F, and they must have 12 or more hours of sunlight daily.

If you live in a cold area, it’d be wise to take them indoors or choose different plants.

Despite their seemingly demanding nature, these flowers are actually pretty adaptable to different environments. So, you won’t find it hard to grow them inside.

Use Well-Draining Soil and Water the Plant Sparingly

Wet Bromeliad

Thanks to their tropical origins, bromeliads can withstand some periods without water. They react better to underwatering than overwatering, and you can even say that they’re drought-tolerant for short periods.

When watering your bromeliads, make sure at least the top two inches of soil are dry. Otherwise, you’ll be overwatering the plant.

It’s also essential to ensure that your bromeliad is draining properly, which brings us to another issue: the soil and container. When choosing both, make sure the soil is well-draining and the container has draining holes.

Pro Tipt bromeliad plants are especially sensitive to metal, so you should always water them using a plastic or wooden container.

Maintain Appropriate Humidity Levels

Since bromeliad plants are tropical, it’s essential to give them a humid environment. If the air is too dry in your home, the bromeliad could wind up dying. Ideally, your humidity level should be around 60% for the sake of these flowers.

You can solve humidity issues by placing a humidifier near your plant. You can also consider other options such as misting the plant every now or then.

Use the Right Fertilizer

You won’t need to worry much about fertilizing bromeliads. They grow well without fertilizer, but they’re notorious for being slow growers. So, if you don’t have enough patience, you can always use a fertilizer, but make sure it’s water-based. Apply it around the base of the plant to get the best results.

Keep in mind that using too much fertilizer can have negative effects. It may cause discoloration and stress, so make sure to use it sparingly.

Maintain Pest Control

Pests can be fatal to any plant if they get far enough into its roots and stem. If you want to keep your bromeliad flower from turning brown before its end of life, make sure to maintain pest control. Keep an eye out for mealybugs and spider mites.

If you see signs of an infestation, start treating it as soon as you can to prevent it from going further. Waiting too long can cause the plant to die prematurely.

Final Thoughts

Learning how to properly take care of bromeliad plants should set your mind at ease. You now understand that the browning issue is natural and pretty much unavoidable.

Give your bromeliad plant the right level of care so that you can keep on appreciating its beauty as long as possible. When it’s time to cut it off, start caring for the pups it produced. They’ll take some time, but they’ll eventually grow into beautiful flowers.

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Carrie

Sunday 16th of October 2022

Thanks so much I kinda figured it was dying off because it had 4 baby pups around the base