I've never tried the apple routine, but I've used Florel, and the time it takes from treatment to bloom can vary between 6 weeks to 3 months, depending on what variety you have. Do you at least know the genus, or nothing at all?

I'm not sure how long you need to expose your plant to the ethylene gas from the ripe fruit (bananas work well too), but I'm guessing a day or two would be sufficient, maybe even less (Florel works overnight). You don't really want your plant to "breathe" anything but the ethylene-infused air during that time, but you do want it not to get overheated and cook inside the bag, so I would recommend doing it indoors or in a cool shady spot.

Lisa, I'm afraid "nothing at all" pretty much sums up my knowledge of its genus. Here's a pic if that helps:

{{gwi:505605}}

Paul is that plant spineless? The pot appears to small also.

Paul, for more information about your plant check Vriesea splendens (GOOGLE).

here try this

Here is a link that might be useful: try this

Yup, Vriesea splendens. That one will take a little longer than some of the others to send up a spike. Figure in the 3 month range.

I can't tell how big your plant is, but the bigger you let it get before you treat it, the bigger the flower will be. If that is Vr. splendens 'Meyer's Favorite' (which it looks like it might be), that plant can get to be about 3 feet across. You can treat it before it gets that big, but the inflorescence will be smaller too. It looks like it has enough foliage on it to support a flower, though.

Well it is indeed spineless, and is currently about 1.5 ft across.

"that plant can get to be about 3 feet across"
LOL oh my! No I definitely can't let it to get THAT BIG. Wouldn't be a place in my apt for it! I rather thought it should be able to support a flower since the parent plant was about half that size when I got it in bloom.

Thanks for the ID, too!
: )

[Houston we have spikage! Thanx lisaclv![(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/houston-we-have-spikage-thanx-lisaclv-dsvw-vd~1776279?n=8)