Australian and New Zealand Gardening: bromeliads for novices and addicts, sep, 2012, 3 by splinter1804

splinter1804 wrote:
Hi everyone,

It looks like another nice day down here today, so back out in the yard and more tidying up. It looks like everyone’s gone again; what’s happened are you all exhausted after all of the posting? Come on, keep posting while we are all on a “roll” and keep this little forum interesting.

Jean - I just mentioned fertilizer because a lot of people often over fertilize and fall into the trap of thinking if a small amount will aid a plant, then three times as much must be three times as beneficial. Wrong! If the extra fertilizer doesn’t kill the brom, it will certainly rob all of the colour from the coloured leaf types such as Neo’s and Bill’s. and cause the leaves to grow long and strappy just the same as they do when grown in excess shade.
Judging by your Hallelujah, you’re doing everything right and getting great colour so don’t change anything.

Karen – Sorry to hear about your uncle, unfortunately this is all part of the cycle of life. Any time I look at pic’s of Sanctuary Cove and places like it and think of all the money that’s been spent in these places, I can’t help thinking of the millions of people dying all around the world from poverty in places where just a few dollars means the difference between life and death. Surely a worldwide better distribution of wealth would be more acceptable; but if you mention this sort of thing you are accused of being a communist. I don’t begrudge anyone a good standard of living, but I think these millionaires do really go over the top. As an example, I saw a show on TV the other night where a lady had a little dog with a diamond studded collar, obviously the dog didn’t care, all it wanted was the companionship of its owner but what good could the cost of the collar have done for the poor and needy?

Sorry; for those of you who don’t know me too well, I do tend to break out and jump on my soap box and beat my drum occasionally. I’ll get down now and get back to brom’s.
Karen you say your first pup is from Rick Cairns; He’s a good bloke who I have swapped a bit with and he also breeds some nice Billbergias (I’ll post a pic of one as an example). As for Fireball, I think it’s grown by almost every Neo. grower and there has been more written about it than most Neo’s and the experts still can’t work out whether it’s a species or a hybrid.

Your pic three looks like the flowers of an Ae. Recurvata to me, although down here the leaves colour up at flowering time, so if you can give it more light it will improve the leaf colour. You have a nice looking batch of plants on your stand and the Vriesea in the garden obviously loves where it’s growing so don’t be tempted to move it anywhere.

Ian – I (and a few others) have had the same trouble as you’ve just described. What I now do is type everything first onto Microsoft Word and when it’s finished, I just cut and paste it to Dave’s Garden. If D.G. swallows it you still have it on M.S. Word and you can easily do it again.

I think you are going to finish up like me with seedlings “coming out of your ears”. True, Porteas have less seeds in the pods but they do take up a lot more space as they grow so I guess everything’s relevant.

What brand of “Bloom Booster” do you use Ian? There are a couple about and I have used the “Manutec” brand with good results previously, also I found the Phostrogen was good for brom’s also as it has much higher Potassium than Nitrogen ratio.
The Vriesea in pic two is Vr. Nova and belongs to a good friend of mine. (I have some Nova seed if anyone would like some) just send me a stamp addressed envelope and it’s yours.

I should have explained a little about the table top display – As you look at the first pic, the journey starts at top left with examples of Neo seed capsules and then (next) a sample of dried seed after being squeezed from a capsule. From there it’s just a matter of following the arrows (although some at the bottom aren’t clear due to reflection).
The first container has seed just starting to germinate with a tiny amount of green just visible through the magnifying glass beside it. From here the arrows just follow the different stages; next to a container of seedlings before they have been “thinned out” . Continuing along the front of the table from left to right, the next container shows how there can be many different colour combinations from the same capsule. Next is a random sample of seedlings in 3” pots and onto a group of four plants from the same cross (Neo. ‘Bea Hanson’ x ‘Rosea Striata’) showing although they all have the radial red markings, the base colour is different in all (even the green one has very fine radial red markings). Finally from here we go to the plant on the top right which has just finished flowering and is making seed capsules (not my doing). I take a seed capsule from “step one” and poke it down in the vase beside to forming capsules and explain to people where it all started. The other plants are just embellishments to show the different colours possible from hybrids. Of all the people who visited my little display over the last three years it is children which I’m please to say have shown the most interest. Ian I have no patent” on the idea, and if you want to do a similar type of educational display just “go for it” but we all want to see the pic’s.

Sue - It seems the “gremlins” have visited Ian as well from what he says. Regarding Bruce; he previously lived at Camden and came down for our meetings. Camden gets stinking hot in summer and freezing cold in winter with vicious frosts, so it’s no wonder he retired and moved north. Incidentally that plant of Vr. Galaxy belongs to him also, he brought a great trailer load of plants all the way down to our show just to help out as he knew we were going to be short of plants and I’m very pleased to say he got a few prizes for all of his trouble.

I’ll finish with a few more pic’s. First one is for Karen and is one of Rick’s Billbergia seedlings, Bill. ‘Fred Red’ x ‘Hallelujah’ (second from left), only a baby yet but showing great colour. 2nd is part of the Aechmea section, 3rd is some of the Billbergia section, 4th is a few of the smaller Neoregelias and 5th is a magnificent specimen of xNeophytum Galacic Warrior.

All the best, Nev.