You have a Tillandsia cyanea, a favorite species of bromiliad. Knowing the specific kind you have is essential to being able to care for it properly. Bromiliads comprise a very large family, and like all families, the members have some broad similarities as well as significant differences. Think about it...when you look at your own siblings or your offspring, do you wonder what planet they call come from? Unlike other bromiliads, I'll recommend that you investigate methods to secure your "Pink Quill" (common name) in that pot. Growing in a potting medium does not come naturally to Tillandsias and this one is no exception. It would have been fine and happy if planted in something like an orchid mix. Epiphitic bromiliads such as tillandias are often called 'air plants'. That is because they live up in the trees or cliffs and collect moisture and necessary nutrients in specialized hair-like cells called trichomes. Trichomes, for epiphytes, can be located all along the leaves but especially towards the middle. The foliage is adapted to steer any rain or even condensed mist towards the center. Get a plant mister and some distilled water. You will simply need to keep the mister filled with water and spray your plant thoroughly every couple of days. Watering and feeding at the roots is far less important than the frequent foliage misting. Yes, the plant will need fertilization which is also accomplished by misting. Never use fish oil or other such fertilizers on your plant, but a simple, water soluble product that yo can mix at a very low rate. By the way, most bromiliads are purchased for the colorful bracts surrounding what are usually insignificant blooms. The spike you are disappointed in IS what this bromiliad is all about. You could look a pictures of a hundred flowering bromiliads and the story is exactly the same: the colorful, exotic part we are all attracted to are modified leaves surrounding the flower....they are called bracts. Many different plants have very colorful bracts that disguise the puniness of their floral display. Poinsettias and Dogwoods are two that pop into my mind immediately. It is unlikely that you will ever see more than one or two of those bright little florets emerge from the bracts. I'll link you to the google images page so that you can see a few gazillion examples just like yours. Enjoy your bromiliad while it is blooming. Who knows how long this period might last, since your plant was artificially forced to bloom. It might be several months! Towards the end of the bloom period, you may begin to see small divisions at the base of your plant. Allow these to grow a bit before carefully excising them carefully from the mother plant. The collecting of bromiliads is a HUGE pasttime. Part of that reason is that the family is so diverse. We have to research the requirments of each new plant we bring into the collection, as the care requirements are likely to be unique from others. But they aren't for everybody, that's for sure. Here is a link that might be useful: Other 'Pink Quill' bromiliads just like yours!

i got one for xmas in fl and i decided to keep it to see if it'll rebloom for summer. i have another short-day length plant that i rebloomed successfully sev times: begonia reiger. so i figured why not try ? it has produced new colored bracts for me in march (2 clusters) - i kept some of the older ones (4 total) to keep it going like ronalawn advised in prior post in 2012. it is still developing new flower buds. am waiting to see if those will color up. i did not give it any 'dark treatment'. it self-branches quite nicely. i still have sev older branches with pink bracts doing well and growing new colored bracts. and the way it goes - i think i will get re-bloom in the fall: my xmas cactus and begonia reiger (both short-day bloomers) rebloom in the same position west window without special dark treatment, just natural nights. even though i do get some street light. Here is a link that might be useful: prior post with my pics in jan and march This post was edited by petrushka on Sun, May 4, 14 at 22:59

My husband doesn't buy me gifts or flowers. He knows that I don't care about things like that. If I want something, I buy it myself. I am not saying he isn't thoughtful.....and the things he does for me, mean a lot to me. Like many years ago, he was working down the coast and got a ride home with some of the other guys working down there. (He is a comm. fisherman, so he went by boat and hitched a ride home for a day or so.) They passed a ditch full of water that had what he thought was an unusual plant, so he got them to stop, go back, and he got one for me. (I raised aquatic plants....so that is the kind of thing that I liked). Another time he was working in Louisiana, and coming home, stopped at a service station that was near a cemetery. A beautiful old rose was blooming on the fence. He brought me a cutting. I rooted it and still have it....many years later. He got an insurance settlement and gave most of it to me to get dental implants...because I wanted them. I wanted to buy a horse in a kill pen in Louisiana....we went to Louisiana and got a horse. Anything I want, if he has the money....I can have. If he brought me a card for an anniversary or even a Christmas present, I would think he had lost his mind. I have two things that really do represent the trouble he will go to to give me things I want. Our first place we bought after getting married, was an old dairy farm. It had a large concrete water trough, and that is what got me interested in goldfish, then fancy goldfish, then waterlilies, then koi. When we sold that place, he moved it here for me. It wasn't an impossible job but it took some doing to move a concrete trough that big. And since then, since I loved that one so much, he found 3 more and moved them here for me too. The other thing he did for me, was have me buy a window that I really loved that is in the bathroom here. It's a long story, and this is too long already, but it is one of my favorite things....it is old and frosted and has a design on it and Reading Room.

Brian and Dev, thanks for the welcome. I've been lurking a while and have learned so much from all the experts here. Discovered I was doing everything wrong so maybe I'll finally get some fruit now after years of lots of blooms but no fruit ;-) And yes the Costcos here started selling citrus about five years ago for about half of what the garden centers were charging. Unfortunately they haven't really added different varieties although 2 years ago they brought in olive trees. Don't like olives so I passed but they were beautiful looking. Haven't seen them again.