DIY potting mix for bromeliads

Bromeliads are great plants for any garden, especially if you live in the sub tropics. They come in many varied forms and habits though – some grow on rocks, some grow on trees – so they can be grown in lots of different ways.
Jerry discusses some of the plants in his garden:
• Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides) – trails from a tree and gathers its water and moisture from the air. They need lots of sunshine (about 6 hours a day) so Jerry recommends hanging it from different trees in your garden to see which ones offer the best conditions. Norfolk Island pines and paperbarks are usually good partners.
• Earth star (Cryptanthus bivittatus) – grows in the leaf litter of a forest floor and can be grown in a flat tray.
• Fan-shaped dyckia (Dyckia estevesii) – elegantly shaped plant that grows in the ground.
• Dyckia ‘Silvertooth Tiger’ – a terrestrial bromeliad with silvery, pointed leaves in a star-shaped formation.
• Deuterocohnia brevifolia – forms a mound of small, star-shaped heads with short pale green, spiky leaves.

While we’re used to seeing them growing in pots, not all bromeliads need a growing medium, and different plants need different types of growing mix. All bromeliads have shallow taproots and, while they all need some moisture, they don’t need to be permanently wet.
Jerry makes up his own potting mixes:
Regular potting mix can retain too much moisture for even tropical bromeliads, so he mixes it in a 1:1 ratio with composted pine bark, which is coarser and allows better drainage and more air pockets to form. Jerry uses this for most of his bromeliads.
However terrestrial bromeliads need even better drainage so for them he mixes equal parts gravel, pine bark and potting mix.


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