Hi everyone.

Rhonda - Your Guzmania is just in the latter part of its life cycle. It's perfectly natural; the plant grows, it flowers. it declines, and while doing so produces one or more pups to continue the strain and then it dies.

I always cut off the old flower as I've been told by experts that whilst on the plant it's draining energy and nutrients which are better utilised for pup production.

These types of plants are commercially grown in their millions as a substitute for cut flowers and intended to be thrown away once flowering has finished. However if, like thousands of others you decide to keep the plant and follow a few simple instructions, there's no reason why you can't have a continuing supply of flowers as each new pup flowers and the growing cycle is repeated.

I have one which started life as a single plant such as yours; instead of throwing it out when it finished flowering I decided to grow it on and I now have flowers every year from the new pups as they mature.

There is much cultural information available on the web and below is a link to just one article on this subject.

http://www.greenculturesg.com/articles/april05/guzmania020405.htm

All the best, Nev.