What to do when vriezia has faded?
For my birthday they gave me a blooming vriezia. Now the inflorescence is almost dry and only spoils the appearance. Tell me what to do next with the faded vriezia flower? Can I cut it?
Vriezia belongs to the Bromeliad family and is an ornamental plant. By its nature, Vriesia is an epiphyte native to tropical forests. There it grows mainly on trees, clinging to the bark with small roots..
In home cultivation, the flower has been used for a long time due to its responsive nature and does not require much. The main thing is to give the tropical beauty plenty of “drink” and take into account some of her features during her care.
What is special about Vriezia?
The plant is a large rosette of long smooth leaves, the color of which depends on the variety and can be both monochromatic green and variegated (stripes or spots), sometimes there are varieties with scaly leaves. The leaf itself can grow up to 80 cm in length, while the width is no more than 8 cm.The leaf is rather rigid, curved downwards and with smooth edges.
There is a deep funnel in the middle of the rosette. It is she who is the main “highlight” of the plant, since it plays a major role in its development. Vriezia “drinks” water not through the roots, but directly with the help of this funnel. Like other epiphytes, the roots of a flower serve only for support and stability (with which it clings to the substrate). Therefore, when watering, it is necessary to pour water directly into the center of the outlet..
In natural conditions, the vriezia funnel can hold more than 4 liters of water.
Vriezia blooms very beautifully – a long peduncle grows from the center of the outlet, in some varieties it can reach up to 1 m in height. On the peduncle, many inflorescences are formed in the form of a colossus, and it is flat. The flowers themselves are placed in the bracts. The varieties in which these bracts are painted in different colors look especially gorgeous..
Unlike flowers, which fade quickly, bracts retain their decorative appearance for several months..
What to do after the end of flowering?
As soon as the color of the bracts has become faded, and the scales have become limp and dead, this means that the vriezia has faded. Next, you can do two things with the flower:
- Leave the peduncle until the seeds are fully ripe, if you plan to collect them.
- Cut the peduncle as low as possible.
It is noteworthy that the leaf rosette of vriezia also gradually dies off after flowering, but young rosette babies are formed around. The plant reproduces with them, but it is not possible to separate the children from the mother’s outlet before they grow to a third of the height of the old vriezia and form their own roots.
This process is quite lengthy and can take more than a year. During this time, you no longer need to water the flower into the central outlet, you just need to spray the children and slightly moisten the soil in the pot. When the children grow up, they must be separated and planted in separate pots to get a new plant..
