Talk to a local nursery (where they sell plants) and maybe they'd take some of it off your hands in trade for something else :)

I put one of my B. nutans in the ground. Sometimes there is a Conservancy booth at orchid shows that sell donated orchids and bromeliads as a fundraiser. I bought a bare root matchstick brom from a show last year for $1 (it is now 50% of a 20" pot). Sometimes I get tired of increasing the pot size of plants and give starts to various budding gardeners. Colleges with horticulture classes might want some to divide and sell during their nursery days.

How do you feel about the plant?

Hi everyone.

Charles - Billbergia nutans (Queen's Tears or Friendship Plant) is one of the most common and most widely grown bromeliad species here in Australia where I live. It's been a around for years and is one of those plants you could confidently class as "bullet proof".

One of the farms I visited as a kid (seventy years ago) had a clump growing in the front garden and I still remember it well, mainly due the unusual shape and attractive colour combination in the flowers.

That farm has now long gone, and all that's left is a disintegrating old house with a fallen down surrounding fence. Cattle are still kept on the property and occasionally wander in through the broken fence and trample over what was once a beautiful garden and I was once saddened to see the beautiful clump of Queen's Tears completely flattened and what I though was destroyed by the cattle.

However, two years later much to my surprise the Queen's Tears was there again in full flower and showing just how resilient it really is. It's one of those plants you can put in the garden and forget about as it needs no help to flourish.

If grown in the garden, the only maintenance it needs is to be kept trimmed back as it can become quite invasive if left to it own devices. So if you have a corner of your garden which is looking a bit bare, this is the plants for you as it isn't too fussy about its location, and as long as it gets a bit of sun throughout the day, it will happily grow and flower for years and years.

Just out of interest, it has also been used successfully as a parent in breeding and has 55 registered hybrids to its credit with the first one being bred as far back as 1889 which is some "track record"

See: http://registry.bsi.org/?fields=Parents&id=674&search=nutans

All the best, Nev.

Thanks for the responses. I now have some ideas to explore, I was stuck before.