Marjie, Right! I don't know how tall a potted pineapple, grown indoors gets, but those at the conservatory, 'in-ground,' and a group sold at Home Depot, 'potted' were tall...Too tall for a shelf.. Their tops were so large and heavy the pots kept tipping over. This happened when I worked there. Don't know how many times I picked them up. The only other time HD had pineapples, 'I quit,' they were individually placed in clear plastic bags. Plastic helped, but leaf weight still knocked them down. Eventually, someone stacked every pineapple between shelves, but leaves were bent over. Shelf tiers would need be adjustable to fit taller plants. Good luck in your quest.. :) Purple, as soon as I clicked submit, I thought, oh oh. When I said you/yourself, (experiement) I meant you, 'not you, Purple,' in general... Not you, you, but anyone you..lol Speaking of experimenting...maybe too much in my younger days...lol. j/k of course! Don't know if they're still around, but do you remember Cordyline/Ti plant logs? Two logs came in a plastic bag, for, ahem, 1.00!!! Logs were rooted in water. Hopefully your Cordy remains in good health. I have NO idea how Sans can be rooted in water. That'd be more difficult than rooting Hoya cuttings. I didn't see the thread on the Sans Forum, but heard others talk, in older threads, about rooting Sans in water. Well, I'll be! I buy the 15 bean soup beans for my birds. lol. Never tried rooting a bean, but it'd be an interesting 'experiment.' For the birds sake. Flavor packets contain too much salt..birds could get sick or worse if they injest too much. So it goes in the trash. Same with bird seed. If they sprout, seeds are fresh, if not, more than likely they're old and stale. How do you root carrots in water? Purple, sweet potatoes are sprayed with a retardant which prevents growth. I remember reading this topic on a book called Starting from Scratch. So, I went to the store, bought a couple sweet potatoes, and sure enough..nothing, nada. BTW, I bought sp's at different stores with the same results. The only SP's I now grow are Ornamental types. lol. Toni

I've grown them for years and from my experience you will have to wait a bit to see fruit. Some of them grow very fast and get large enough to fruit in a couple of years but most of them take their sweet time. All of mine have taken at least 5 years to fruit. People that have heated greenhouses to winter them in get fruit faster. Even those grown from store bought fruit taste better when home grown. I would try local Asian or Hispanic markets to see if anyone is shipping in some of the other varieties and grow them from the tops before I sank a lot of money into the shipping charges to ship a plant.

I've got a lot of practice with NOT being able to get them started. I think a LOT of it has to do with temperatures. I started 2 back in June and one of those actually took root and is currently a very nice plant. I started about 5 tops this fall and nothing has taken. I even have been using bottom heat on a couple. I think i'm going to wait until May or June to start some more and see what happens. You can also try to sprout the seed (you can usually get 20 or so seeds form a pineapple), but they tend to take a long time to sprout (i've yet to accomplish this!). I don't think pineapples like my climate!

One of my pineapples grown from tops (I have two) has gotten so big that it is dangerous to my son, on whose desk it sits. The leaves have twisted around to get the light from the window it sits beside, and I really don't have another sunny window in the house where it would fit. Is there any way I could move it outside? What low temps will pineapples tolerate? We live in central South Carolina, where it does get below freezing, but it generally doesn't stay there for long. Is there any remedial care I could give it during cold snaps that would allow it to survive the winter? Thanks for your help. Rachel