Hi everyone.

Lars - I don't know about your conditions, but here in Australia I grow this plant beneath 75% beige shade cloth and it does well for me.

Maybe your plant isn't getting sufficient light and the stalk is bending toward where the light is strongest.

All the best, Nev.

I checked it again today, and the stalk has already started to straighten up. The slats in my pergola are spaced with 20% of width between slats, and there is a lot of light that comes in from the sides unfiltered. When I bought the plant, it was being grown in a lower light condition; i.e., a room with a solid roof and only a few windows plus doors for indirect light. I've had a lot of problems with bromeliad leaves burning, and so I prefer to give them less light rather than more to start, as they seem to recover from low light conditions better than from excessive light conditions. Once leaves have been burned, they seem to be destroyed, and I rarely find that my plants do not get enough light, no matter how much protection I give them. I am always happier when I am able to move them into to brighter conditions.

I have another similar plant that I've had for probably four years and it still has not put out more flowers, but I think that sometimes I get good strong plants, and sometimes I get weaker ones. That's why I buy multiple identical plants - they never perform identically. I generally inspect my plants in the fall (when there is less danger of burning) and then see if they need to be divided and/or repotted.

Hi everyone.

Larrs - A Bromeliad show judge once told me the best way to get a perfectly symmetrical brom is to give it and its pot a quarter of one turn each few days. That's fine when you only have a few plants, but I'm afraid it's not much help when you have a yard full.

All the best, Nev.

I've been rotating it, and that does seem to help, but the flower stalk now has several bends in it. I'm okay with it this time, but next time it starts to bloom, I will start rotating it more often. I moved it slightly so that it would be easier for me to rotate it without getting pricked too much. Here's what it looked like on Sept 9:

it is ok to stake it if you need to. thats what I did when one of the pups I potted kept leaning over too much

Here's how it looks now, and I will try to find a way of staking it up.

If you were here, I would give you part of it, as I have it growing in several pots. The flower spike is bigger now than when it bloomed before. I'm not sure why the leaves are so droopy, but if I give it more light, they turn brown, and so I keep it fairly protected. It was being grown indoors when I bought it, and so I considered it mainly a house plant.

I am going to move the pot(s) to a different location the next time it starts to bloom so that I can rotate the pot regularly. The flowers stay on the plant for a very long time, but it is a bit difficult to move, as the leaves are like saw blades and are quick to make cuts if I am not wearing long leather gloves.

Here is a somewhat similar bromeliad we saw in at theArenal Butterfly Conservatory / Botanical Gardens in Costa Rica last March: