Bromeliad

Bromeliad Plants – Bountiful Flowering Beauties You May Want to Beware

I don’t hate any flowers or plants. (Truly, I don’t really hate anything… except mayonnaise.) Bromeliad plants, though, are definitely not a favorite of mine.

These wildly colorful and incredibly diverse plants abound throughout the Caribbean. According to Bromeliad Society International, the plant family Bromeliaceae is made up of 56 genera and 3,000+ different species. As bromeliads are endemic to the Caribbean, you can find a good many of those species in our islands.

(Note: these pretty plants are native to Central and South America as well.)

You can also find a good many bromeliads just about anywhere and everywhere. Different species of these dynamic plants grow in the ground, on rocks, or in the air. Some even grow on other plants!

As you might well imagine, bromeliads come in all colors, shapes, and sizes. It’s the shape pictured here, though, that’s a problem for me.

Several types of the most popular bromeliads grow in a tight spiral. In the process, their leaves form a sort of natural cup called a rosette. This rosette is obviously quite beautiful, as pictured above. In it, though, rainwater collects. The result is an absolutely ideal breeding ground for mosquitos.

Yeah, these plants aren’t 100% pretty after all…at least not to me.

There are, of course, ways to make your rosette less hospitable to mosquito habitation. Adding a few drops of cooking oil to any standing water inside the flower can do the trick. Spraying a bit of non-stick cooking spray on your rosette works too. The oil coats the surface of the water, effectively preventing mosquito larvae from breathing.

Or, like me, you can simply keep bromeliads out of your landscaping. They’re just not worth the trouble to me, though I do love seeing them at botanical gardens along our Caribbean travels…

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