Horticulturalist Pamela Koide-Hyatt loves bromeliads so much it pains her to see them abused, particularly when they’re treated as if they are disposable decorations.

That often happens to the beautiful, silvery-leafed Tillandsia xerographica, an endangered bromeliad native to southern Mexico and Guatemala, she told visitors to the San Diego County Fair during two talks this week. Because this bromeliad can go months without water and its twisted-up, silvery foliage looks so striking when placed in a darkened room, it’s often used as a disposable wall art item.

“It just breaks my heart to go into a restaurant and see one nailed to the wall,” she said.

Koide-Hyatt, who owns and operates Bird Rock Tropicals in La Jolla, is on a mission to educate more people about the proper care of bromeliads.


She’s not the only one.

The San Diego Bromeliad Society puts together a demonstration garden each year at the county fair, showing that bromeliads can be planted in the ground as well as planted in pots or hanging from a trellis. This year, the society’s garden won a San Diego Horticultural Society’s prize for the most creative use of an unusual plant material. It also won the fair’s best amateur landscape exhibit prize.

Native to the tropics and the subtropics of the Americas, bromeliads are epiphytic, meaning they often grow on other plants or rocks, but aren’t parasitic and take nothing from their host. Instead, they get their nutrients from the surrounding air, water or even debris that accumulates around them.

There are more than 3,000 species of bromeliads and the best known one probably is the pineapple, which is native to Brazil, a pamphlet produced by the San Diego Bromeliad Society states.


People also are probably very familiar with some of the smaller members of the silvery-leafed Tillandsia genus of Bromeliads, Koide-Hyatt said. Tillandsias are commonly referred to as “air plants” and shops often sell tiny ones glued onto items such as sea shells, she said.

That’s not the way she would recommend growing them, however. She tells people to tie several tiny air plants together with monofilament line and hang them up in a patio garden. They’ll grow together to create a beautiful ball shape, she said, as she lifted up one to show the audience. Caring for them is easy; simply drench them in a cup of water every once in a while, she said.

“I’ve left them overnight (in the cup),” she said.

And, speaking of water and other plant needs, Koide-Hyatt reports that less is best. Fertilize and water too frequently, and bromeliads end up leggy-looking and very green, losing their distinctive leaf stripes or mottled colorings.


There are some 700 species of Tillandsia, including one that Koide-Hyatt discovered in Mexico in the 1980s. Found on a cliff near Guadalajara, the Tillandsia pamelae has a 5- to 6-foot, pink flower stalk with purple petals. Koide-Hyatt features her namesake plant on some of her business cards.

Prizing-winning bromeliads will be displayed during the society’s annual show and sale from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. both Saturday and Sunday at Balboa Park’s Casa del Prado building, Room 101.

