| I need some help with my pinapple plant. I've had it for over 4 years and looking to get a pinapple off it. Can you help? I'm looking for a banana plant that will have fruit, too. |
| To grow your pineapple plant as a houseplant, give it a brightly lighted location which receives at least six hours of bright light each day. Water sparingly, as the soil drys. Don't over water, but don't let it go completely dry either. Fertilize once or twice a month with a houseplant fertilizer. If possible, let it spend the summer outside in a brightly lighted location. You can find such a site in the shade of a tree where grass grows successfully. Too much shade will not be good. Before frost, bring the pineapple plant back indoors for the winter. When the plant gets as large as you can manage, lay the plant and pot on its side between waterings. This interferes with hormones in the plant, causing the production of another hormone, ethylene, which induces flowering. An alternative method of inducing flowering is to place the plant in a bag with a ripening apple. The ripening apple produces ethylene gas which will induce flowering in the pineapple. You will have to continue these treatments for a couple of months and will probably need to replace the apple several times. Although you can grow a banana plant indoors, it probably won't flower and produce fruit. Sorry! |
