Australian and New Zealand Gardening: OUR BROMELIADS INTO 2015.. , 2 by splinter1804

splinter1804 wrote:
Hi everyone – Not much time today as we are having a “Problem Solving Workshop” today for interested members of the Brom Society. It’s at the Light Rail Museum park which is a good venue for these things as it’s a safe venue and members can bring kids, grandkids and dogs if they like as it’s fully fenced. As it’s a non-working day at the museum we will have the park to ourselves so it should be good in a safe outdoor environment with large covered shelters if the weather turns bad.

Teresa – There were some nice unexpected colours came from that particular Neo. ’Painted Lady’ (Sport) parent. I never expected shades of peach and orange tones but was pleased to see them nevertheless as they are a bit different to the norm.

I like your idea of selling culls as “Practice Plants” and will certainly give it some thought, perhaps I will try it at our Spring Show plants sales.

Brian – I’ll look forward to seeing you at the plant sale if you can make it. As I said it’s a “first” for us and the organising has been a bit rushed so it’s unknown how it will go but I guess if we don’t try we’ll never know. I personally don’t know much about the venue so I’ve emailed you the “information blurb” that was sent out to all members.

You say the plant in your first picture is a small plant; by this do you mean it’s a mini ? (Less than 8” in diameter). If so it could be Neo. ‘Domino’ which is a stoloniferous Neo. which is said to grow well in bright conditions. The plant in Pic.3 of the following link is a good likeness. See: http://registry.bsi.org/?genus=NEOREGELIA&id=3978#3978 another example is the plant in my Pic.1.

xNeomea ‘Strawberry’ is a very popular bi-generic plant that’s been around for quite a while and will reward with great colour if grown in a well-lit position.
I’m not familiar with xNeomea ‘Shooting Star’ but on looking it up I find that it’s a crossing between Neoregelia johannis and Aechmea recurvata v. benrathii. The robustness of Neo. johannis combined with Ae. recurvata v. benrathii which I’ve often said (in my opinion) is “bullet proof” should have resulted in a very tough plant which I would be interested to hear more about.

I don’t think the plant in your Pic.4 is Neo. ‘Marble Snow’; it’s a nicely coloured plant but a true Marble Snow just doesn’t have that amount of colour See my Pic.2 for comparison. Marble Snow has been used a lot in hybridising over the last few years and there’s a good chance what you have is one of the hybrids from it.

Your final picture (“Galaxy’) is an example of one of the better ‘Marble Throat’ hybrids and was made using Neo. 'Marble Throat' crossed with Neo. 'Takemura Princeps'

Trish – I totally agree with what you say about the colour changeability of plants grown in different degrees of light and just to emphasise the point I’m posting a picture of Bill. Hallelujah grown in low light (Pic.3), it still appeals to me in a sort of a fashion but not to many others. Perhaps if I hadn’t first said it was Hallelujah, people’s response would have been different. In fact I posted it yesterday but didn’t identify it so obviously no one picked it up.

I have quite a collection of Bill’s now, but as for a favourite it’s hard to say, but I think it would be Bill. ‘Stephen Stone’ as I have a soft spot for this one probably due to family connections of its history (Pic 4). As far as the Bill. flowers go, I still favour the flowers of Bill. pyramidalis, I know they are short lived, but I think they are magnificent.

Yes I did, get a short note from Colleen, her and the boys are all well but she’s been very busy with family matters and selling plants. She said she would pop in as soon as she got a bit of spare time.

Time to go again, the pictures I’ve attached are as mentioned above.1. Neo. Domino, 2 Neo Marble Snow, 3 Hallelujah (Shade grown), 4 Bill. Stephen Stone and 5 pyramidalis flowers

All the best, Nev

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