what a cool plant..I love it..I would leave it thru this summer and repot next spring..is that a regular planter?

I hope I didn't really screw up... I feel bad I didn't follow the directions properly and may have really messed up this schef. Once I took it out of the large pot, it was not what I expected, as you saw in the photo the root ball was tiny compared to the pot, less than 1/5 of the size of the pot. After examination, the roots in the ball there was (as shown in the photo) were not all that substantial. I think that the roots have been rotting away in this wet slop of a soil that barely drained. I decided I had no choice but to get it out of this soil that it was drowning in. I cleaned off the root ball and put it in the new Turface, Pine Bark, and Perlite gritty mix I just made. All went well, fertilizing and transplanting. I also added a mycorrhizal product to the roots. Then.... perhaps I should skip this part, this is the bad part of my day. I tried to bring it back into the house myself. It had such minimal roots that it didn't hold in the gritty mix that well. It fell out of the pot, down a couple step and hit the ground. Amazingly, It appears to not have suffered any physical damage. I moved the pot in, then brought in the schefflera. I re-planted it in the pot in place. It would not stay standing on it's own, I didn't get it buried quite as deep as I had it when I was outside. All I could think to do was to place some #3 grit around it, thinking the #3 is large enough that it would not cause a problem with it being on the top of the mix. So it is held in place now with the grit. Only time will tell how much damage or perhaps if I am very lucky, good I have caused. Looking on the bright side, perhaps I saved it from upcoming death from root rot and it will like it's new mix despite the trama. I did not prune it and will leave it un pruned until next summer as advised. I have to go apologize to my plant some more. :-( Thanks Jamie

Judy, No such thing as a dumb question here except maybe some of the ones I've posted. Re-reading my post, I meant to say that your Guzmania is growing quite well, you don't need to fertilise it but Guzmanias don't mind a little fertiliser. I would divide the plant up but that comes down to personal preference, the pups can typically be removed when they are about one third the size of the mother plant - doing that will encourage the plant to produce more pups. There is a wealth of information hidden in the back post of this forum, you can search or just work your way through the back posts. Your orchid fertiliser would be OK diluted. Rick Here is a link that might be useful: Fertiliser debate

Joe, Wait until it's warmer is my suggestion - it looks like it's doing fine. OTOH, if you're able to keep it warm during its getting used to new digs, why not? It will be that much happier when spring gets here in full.