Yes, too common. I have quite a few of them, and I have to protect most of them from too much sun, as I do not grow any of them indoors. They are good indoor plants, however. They are grown mostly for the flowers in bloom, and since they are so cheap, I think most people discard them after the bloom is gone.

Breeders haven't done a thing to alter Guzmania leafs have they? No spots,stripes,mixed colors..just the bloom. Interesting.

I've got Guzmania Candy Corn, with dark red striping on the back side of the leaves. The photos I've seen of it on the internet show the stripes more restricted to the bracts, but on mine it's on the lower leaves as well. There are other guzmania cultivars with more impressive variegated foliage on the BSI website (e.g. Firecracker, Candy Cane, Georgia) but I haven't seen any of those in person. Looking around the fcbs site, there are some species with pretty attractive foliage, too (G. musaica, G zahnii. G. monostachia var variegata). I wish I would run into some of those some time.

I have a variegated-leaf Guzmania from Home Depot. Of course they are never identified with a variety name. It looks somewhat similar to 'Georgia'. It has grown only one pup. Not multiple pups like the non-variegated ones. Home Depot doesn't often sell many variegated Guzmanias, so when I saw it, I snatched it up. My broms all stay indoors in winter, and then are hung from trees in summer.

i don't think they are so easy to rebloom. i read that they need temps above 75F for blooming. i kept mine indoors as i only have a balcony and it's too crowded with other plants. it was quilling and when finally the stalk came i was away and it got stuck and dried up. i have another pup full grown from the same plant, it's quilling again, i will start soaking it - but it's rather big and not very pretty. but i'll give it a chance come summer on the balcony.

ok, my guz is blooming! last i checked the full-grown pup it did not have any roots in feb (i accidentally popped it off in oct from mama and been trying to root it...).

but now it does have some roots (i checked) and it's blooming too! 1st rebloom of a guzmania indoors for me. 2 years ago it quilled so badly, it choked the bloom (same plant).

Here are some of mine that have rebloomed:

I have better luck with the larger plants - the small ones sometimes take a long time to rebloom, but there are exceptions, like the first one in this post. Not all of them bloom every year. The last one is my favorite, and I saw large specimens of it in Costa Rica.

the last one is special, i searched and it looks like it is G. conifera hybrid.

similar to 'Kapoho Fire'.

Yes, I'm pretty sure it is a Guzmania Conifera of some sort. Here's the one in Costa Rica I saw

and with some other GuzmaniaLa Paz Waterfall Gardens.

fantastic!

Hi everyone.

Stan - What you say is what it's like here in Australia also, they don't seem as popular as other types of bromeliads. I think it may be because they are more cold sensitive that the other commonly grown genera.

Here's a few of the ones I grow, firstly the hybrids.

Guzmania 'Cherry Ripe'

Guzmania 'Hilda'

Guzmania 'Scarlet Wonder'

Guzmania 'Sunny Time'

And now some of the more spectacular species.

Guzmania sanguinea

Guzmania lingulata

Guzmania sanguinea var. brevipedicellata

Guzmania lingulata minor variegated

Guzmania wittmackii

All the best, Nev.

I enjoyed this thread, especially the photos.

Five years and more ago, in Jacksonville, Florida, it used to be overwhelmingly neos that were sold in the local retail locations. And neos are my favorite, so I was a happy girl. However, slowly but surely, they were replaced by guzs. This spring (2018), only common "landscaping" neos were available in the garden/plant areas and exclusively guz were found in the indoor plants and florist area. No more gorgeous neos anywhere! Even the Ace Hardware & Nurseries - which I could always count on to have beautiful neos - had goose egg in the neo category.

As several of you commented, guz are much less winter-hardy. After a two-year pass with no hard freeze, Jacksonville had a very cold winter with several 12+ hour, hard freezes. Despite some protection, I lost many of my guzs. So I'm not enthusiastic to replace them. The neos did much better and I lost not a single one. Many of them look pretty raggedy from frost burned leaves, but no neos were lost.

Not sure what provoked the steady transition here in northern Florida, but guz now soundly trump neos in local availability. I wish I could call out to the growers and buyers to bring the neos back to Jax. In the meantime, I've satisfied myself with a little eBay action. :)

Carol in Jacksonville

Reblooming variegated Guz. The single pup grew much larger than the original plant. Hopefully it will start to pup more than just one at a time. Neos are hard to find locally -- at least at affordable prices.

Dave, nice-looking plant! I love the [long, strappy, leggy variegated ones[(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/what-is-the-name-of-this-leggy-brom-dsvw-vd~4523012?n=4). It looks nice hanging in the tree. It's little friend, hanging out in the back, is cute, too!

Yeah, don't you hate the one-off pup action? I can't just have a one-done, one-replacement thing going on... I tell the plant: I need more! I need MORE! MORE! MORE!

So neos are getting scarce where you are, too... and high-priced! Around here, it's Voodoo Doll, Fireball, Puppy Love, Lila (or Donna) and something-that-I-don't-care-for (can't remember the name) in the Home Depot landscape brom selection. Other than that, not a neo for miles around... except for the nice ones already in my yard. :)

I caved and bought two new guz... no names, unfortunate... so in my records they are 2018 pink and 2018 white, LOL. The pink one was purchased with THREE pups - woohoo!

No pups on the white one, yet. [I think the plants are often depupped right before shipping to stores[(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/broms-how-to-know-if-pups-have-been-taken-dsvw-vd~4031569?n=6). (And why wouldn't they be? If I was a grower, I'd do the same.)

Happy gardening!

Carol in Jacksonville

Hi everyone.

Carol - It seems like the big chain stores and some nurseries (here in Australia and possibly in your country as well) are following the trend in Europe as far as flowering bromeliads go.

When you see brom plants (Often large numbers of identical plants all in flower at the same time) this should ring the "warning bells" as these are very likely all tissue cultured plants (mass produced in their thousands) exclusively grown for the flowers. and as an alternative to buying a bunch of "cut flowers".

Just like they do in European countries, they sell well because they are often cheaper than a bunch of cut flowers, last much, much longer and are a much better financial proposition.

The thing to remember is these plants are just intended to be grown for the flowers and not grown on after they finish flowering. In fact in European countries most of these are binned when the flowers finish and a new flowering plant is purchased.

The down side is that generally speaking (Here in Australia at least) they have been force fed to grow quickly and on reaching a mature size they are then either chemically treated or gassed to induce flowering. This is why we see large numbers of identical plants all in flower at the same time.

The other annoying thing is that they are rarely named except for a generic name e.g. "Bromeliad", and some "one suits all" type of instruction on all plant name tags, Guzmanias, Vrieseas and Aechmeas alike. These instructions are intended to keep the plant healthy to prolong flowering.

There is nothing illegal about this, but if you want to buy brom's to grow on and not just specifically for the flowers you are better getting a plant or pup from a grower or a nursery who deals in these types of broms.

In my experience; another down side to the mass produced plants you buy in flower is that when the flowers finish, they will often produce many pups which will grow into nice healthy plants but are very hard to flower or in some cases won't flower at all.

I believe the reason for this is that these plants have had all unnatural things applied to them (Tissue cultured, force fed and gassed) which has upset the internal growing and reproduction mechanism of the plant and in my experience it's not until the second generation of pups that things start to return to normal and I have eventually obtained flower.

In my early days of brom growing I once bought an Ae fasciata in full flower and even though I already had this plant, the one I bought had an enormous flower almost twice the size of my other plant. I later found out it was Ae 'Morgana" a cultivated variety of Ae. fasciata,

See: http://registry.bsi.org/?genus=AECHMEA&id=378#378

The flowers were extremely long lived and when it finished flowering it started producing pups and I removed at least ten over a six month period, It just pupped and pupped.

The thing is these pups all matured into lovely healthy plants but all were reluctant to flower and I ended binning the lot except one which I kept and which still has not flowered even though it's now about four years since it reached maturity.

So there you have what I have learned from buying these flowering plants from large chain stores. I can only speak for my plants grown here in Australia and things may be different in your country.

All the best, Nev.

I think Nev is correct. The industry forces these guzmanias to bloom at a smaller, earlier age.

However. I'm not sure about the 'de-pupping' issue. From what I've seen, the pups on my guzmanias don't even emerge until the flower is aging or nearly finished. Well past the point they are sold in the stores. Unless they are harvested for meristem tissue, which I doubt, because they are down so deep in the plant at the point of sale.

I think that plants that are forced to bloom early just don't pup as well. But eventually they do. And the pups that are grown on, will get larger, bloom well, and eventually pup even more. My blooming pup now shows at least two pups, but they are quite small....again, way too small to remove.

I've never had a problem getting Home Depot guzmanias to rebloom (Vrieseas are another mattter!). We have warm, humid summers with hazy skies. Perfect for summer growing. In winter mine go either in basement under lights or in garage where temp is no colder than 45 degrees F, but humidity is higher.

Anyway....from my limited experience!