Birthday
HydrangeasYou can grow a pineapple from the top of a shop-bought fruit, one of the most rewarding home plant experiments. You will get a striking plant with a stiff rosette of leaves and, with good conditions and patience, perhaps even a small fruit of your own. Here is how.
Green plants for your home: potted plants.
About the plant
Pineapple (Ananas comosus) is a herbaceous plant of the bromeliad family from South America. The fruit is a multiple fruit formed from many fused flowers. Like other bromeliads, each rosette fruits once and then produces side shoots.
Choosing a pineapple
- Pick a ripe but not overripe fruit with a firm green crown and no rot or dry centre leaves.
- Buy in the warm season if you can: in winter fruit is often chilled in transit.
How to root the top
- Twist the crown off by the leaves, or cut it off with a little flesh and remove all the flesh.
- Strip the lower leaves to expose 2–3 cm of stem.
- Let the cut end dry for 1–2 days.
- Stand it in a glass of water with only the bare stem submerged, or plant it straight into light, moist compost. Roots appear in 2–4 weeks.
Care
- Pot and soil. A shallow, wide pot with drainage and a light bromeliad mix, or all-purpose compost with sand and bark.
- Light. As bright as possible, the sunniest window; it can go outside in summer.
- Warmth. 20–30 °C, not below 18 °C in winter.
- Watering. Moderate, once the top of the soil has dried; pineapples cope with drought better than with wet soil.
- Feeding. Every 2–3 weeks in spring and summer with a weak bromeliad or flowering-plant fertiliser.
When to expect flowers and fruit
With good light and warmth a pineapple flowers about 2–3 years after rooting, often later indoors. A flower head with lilac flowers rises from the centre, and a fruit slowly forms, taking several more months to ripen. Flowering is sometimes triggered by sealing the plant in a bag with a ripe apple for a few days: the ethylene prompts bromeliads to form a flower spike. The same trick works for guzmania.
Ornamental pineapples
Florists also sell ornamental pineapples: compact plants with pink or striped leaves and small fruit, grown as decoration. Their care is the same. If you enjoy growing fruiting plants indoors, read about the calamondin.
FAQ
Why did my pineapple top rot?
Most likely flesh was left on it, or too much stem and leaf was submerged in water.
Will a home-grown pineapple be sweet?
The fruit is usually small and its taste depends on light and warmth, but growing one at all is an achievement.
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Author: Maria Svitlovir
Graduated from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Institute of Biology and Medicine (2001). BSc in Biology, MSc in Horticulture. Writes about plants, works at a garden centre selecting and repotting plants, and contributes to plant reference guides.
