Australian and New Zealand Gardening: Bromeliads For Novices and Addicts - October 2014, 0 by splinter1804

splinter1804 wrote:
Hi everyone – Has anyone heard from Trish? It’s been quite a while since she last posted and I’m beginning to wonder if she’s OK. I know she’s a very busy person, but she usually manages to drop in even if it’s just for a quick word.

Jean – It seems like your weather is up here as well and like I said yesterday, the day started off with a warm westerly wind which is never a good sign, and it just got hotter until about 1.30 when it was into the high thirties. We were at a brom’s meeting and were listening to the guest speaker when all of a sudden we heard this noise like a train coming, and it was a terrific thunderstorm. Fortunately it was short lived, but very savage wind driven heavy rain was coming in horizontally, so much so that it was blown under all of the western doors and nearly flooded out the foyer. After half an hour the storm had past and the sun came out and thereafter it felt like we were in Cairns as the humidity was just so high. This morning it’s quite cool and I presently am wearing trackies and a jumper, so is this what Melbourne weather is like?

That’s great news that you’ve found homes for all of your plants as it would be heart breaking to just watch them all die after all of the loving attention you’ve put into them, and I’m very happy for you.

You say you haven’t seen any flowers coming on your Ae. nudicaulis plants, maybe it’s just because it’s a bit cooler down there than here, and they will possibly be a little behind us. It seemed like everyone at our meeting yesterday brought in a nudicaulis of some sort, and they were all a blaze of colour with their vivid scarlet bracts and yellow flowers.

You say that your friend has a bad case of “Bromamania”; why don’t you get him to join us here on DG as there’s nothing like a good “brom chat” to help with the symptoms of this disease.

I’m looking at your pic’s now and already you have gathered together a nice varied collection for your new home. Ae recurvata is always a winner in any company with the added bonus of orange coloured leaves if you can provide sufficient light. The Bill NOID which you say, “is similar to Hallelujah”, could well be ‘Hallelujah’ as the amount of white and the size of the spots is quite variable, in fact I have on some occasions grown it with large areas of all white on the leaves and I have a pic. somewhere but I can’t find it just now, but when I do I’ll post it. Neo. ‘Birdrock’ is one of those unusual “stand alone” Neo’s which looks better viewed from below rather than from above to show off the silver striping beneath the leaves.

Next there’s ‘Lamberts Pride’ which I don't think will ever go out of favour as well as Enchantment albo-marginata and Johannis de Rolf both long time favourites of growers. Neo.’Black Brazil’, I’m not familiar with, but all collections should have a couple of dark foliage brom’s and this one fills the bill nicely with its deep colour. As if that’s not enough you also haven’t forgotten the species and have a nice plant of Neo. eleutheropetala to top off your collection.

As the man on TV says, “and that’s not all folk” ……There’s a second lot of pic’s as well, and more quality plants; starting with Neo. ‘Exotica Velvet’ which was one from Andrew Steens’ of N.Z. and responsible for boosting the popular trend toward radial reds.

Neo. ‘Lila’ is another popular plant that’s been around for a long time also, but there’s also an interesting connection with another Andrew Steens’ plant called Neo. 'Exotica Lilac Dream' which is a variegated sport from Neo.‘Lila’ (see Pic.1).

Neo.’Pemiento’ is always popular with its great colour scheme and contrasts well with ‘Marble Throat’ which is always a standout in a crowd, and what a great substitute for a bunch of flowers in the house Vr. ‘Grafton Sunset’ makes, and what’s more it will still be in full colour long after any cut flowers have died.

To top it all off there a nice selection of foliage Vrieseas as well, and a favourite of mine Vr. ‘Angela’, which was the first foliage Vriesea I ever bought. All in all I think you’ve selected a good collection to come and live with you.

Time to go once again and today’s pic’s are Pic.1 Neo. 'Exotica Lilac Dream', Pic.2 Nidularium ferrugineum, Pic.3 is another of Jack Koning's plants from the Vr. Red Tip grex, Pic.4 the ever popular Tillandsia bergeri and Pic.5 is Nidularium leprosa x ferrugineum.

All the best, Nev