Australian and New Zealand Gardening: bromeliads for novices and addicts, sep, 2012, 2 by perke_patch

perke_patch wrote:
hi again everyone. Ian you must have a lot of broms and growing daily. I thought we had a problem with seeds buy sounds like you might have more than we do. We just got rid of our spa to make a seedling area. Still a bit of room in it but by the time I pot up the bigger seedlings it will fill up quickly. I'm still like you and when thinning out the seeds I pot them up instead of chuck them out. I like to pluck out about a dozen or so and pot them up and feed them up heavily to make them grow quickly to get an idea of what they might become. However if the seed is from something you think might produce variegates you can't fertilise till they have time to show some variegation. we have a few neos which are supposed to give a lot of variegated seedlings eg cane fire, purple prince, bob's baby. I will collect seed from these next time I catch them flowering. until then I will keep pumping fertiliser into the seedlings.

Trish I used to be like you and sat in front of a computer all day at work. last thing I wanted to do when I got home was sit in front of the computer. now I'm downstairs in the broms all day and work harder now than when I was at work. but I love nothing better than getting downstairs by myself and just potter all day doing what I want. I love it when Johnny decides to go fishing then I enjoy a day of peace and quiet by myself. I love that first pic of yours - the cross with myendorfii. love the colour.

Nev I hope your weekend went well. how busy did you get? can't wait for the pics. hope you sold all your plants and won a few champion ribbons with your plants.

Karen and Sue I've loved all your brom pics. Sue your garden is spectacular I'm sure you'll do well. Is judging before or after your weekend with Jen???

Ian what aechmeas have you sown seed of. we have beeriana seedlings getting some good size now. Also have heltoniis that we are potting up as well as porteas, blanchetianas, orlandianas (rainbow & snowflake) and a couple of NOID aechmeas. We also have a lot of vrisea, neos, billbergias, alcantareas, pitcairnias, tillandsia, catopsis. I guess a bit of everything I can get my hands on. I'm not too good at making hybrids although I have tried crossing them. Not always successful but sometimes I do have success. Otherwise I just walk around and look for seed developing. latest is with billbergias. now that I've had success with crossing and collecting billbergia seed I am keen to collect more seed from them. I'm excited when I see a nice fat ripening seed pod. With neos I started off picking out nice plants with really good parentage like the Alan Freeman hybrids. He used choice parents so his hybrids should produce some very nice F2 seedlings. So I chose some of them and just started pulling pods out and collected the seeds and sowed them. We now have some nice seedlings growing. Nev also keeps me supplied with seed from crosses he has done. I love it when Nev sends me seed from mini neos because that is one thing I'd like to grow but still haven't worked out how to collect the seed from those little babies.

Pic 1 & 2 are of our seedlings of concentrica hybrids (parents unknown)
Pic 4 is one of our seedlings from takemura x grace darling.
Pic 3 is one of our painted delight F2 seedlings.
Wish I could post some better ones but alas this computer doesn't have them on here.

Off to bed now. night all
Wendy