Australian and New Zealand Gardening: Bromeliads for novices & addicts, October 2012, 3 by perke_patch

perke_patch wrote:
hi again to everyone.

Trish when we started out growing we were told that the flower takes a lot of the energy from the plant so if we had no intention of harvesting the seed we would be much better off to cut the flower off and let the plant have the energy to stay looking good and produce pups. At first we did this religiously and the plants certainly remain looking good so much longer without the flower spike. However once we got hooked on crossing pollen and collecting seed we now leave the spike on unless there are several of the same plant all coming into flower at same time. Then we pick the best of them and leave the flower on and take the others off.

Nev I love you collection of billbergias. lots of colour there. I snipped a few more of my clumping billbergias today. When I get multiple tubes I snip between them so they all throw pups. I'm greedy and need big clumps before I'm happy. it helps also when someone wants a pup and I can just scoop out a tube with its own root ball. I wish I knew how to make the hallelujas multiply quickly cause I never seem to have any spares potted up. they go as fast as I get them growing. Collected some more seed today off my sanderiana. another 2 pods. that will make 5 trays of seed but I crossed so many pods and because my toothpicks fell out I have to treat each pod as a different cross just in case it was a crossed one. hopefully when they grow it will be obvious which pods was which cross and which ones are F2. otherwise there will be a lot of sanderiana hybrids hahaha.

Sue thanks for the tip about those little bugs in he seedling trays eating the roots. I checked today when watering and a few trays do have the little bugs in them. I always wondered why some seedlings were tightly holding on in the mix and standing upright while others just lay on top with no roots. now I know why. I discovered one tray today of guz lingulatas. I had potted up quite a few larger ones and they are growing nicely but what was left in the tray with little bugs have now been chewed off and we have bladey grass lying on top of the ground. I'm going to pot up any others infested to get them away from the little bug..gers

Well I tried the condys crystals today. I had previously bought a good sized container of condys crystals from the produce and shared pill bottles of it with friends including Jen but I hadn't tried it. Today I took a tiny little pinch and put it into my coke bottle thinking I could add a tiny bit more if I needed to. BUT it went dark purple. It was such a tiny little bit of powder too. So there I was diving in the bin before the garbo truck came so I could rescue another coke bottle. I then poured about half inch of purple liquid in and topped up with water to make a lightly pink tinted mix. I then sprayed all the seedlings and billbergias. I didn't even use up all the bottle of purple mix so my container is going to last me forever. Now I'll sit back and watch them all grow.

we did nothing today after we put away all the unsold broms. late yesterday after the incredible wind came up we just carried the full tables back into the garage area under the house and folded up the empty tables to free up the carport for the cars before a big branch fell on them. we met Johnny's sisters at the shopping centre for lunch then and when we got home we just spent an hour or so watering all the broms. that was the extent of our energy.

Tash we have the same hippy flowering down the back. lovely splash of colour aren't they????

Oh just found out that our first practice grandson is going to be a daddy. If his mum had stayed with our Darren we'd be looking forward to being GREAT GRANDPARENTS. omg I'm not old enough for that surely. Anyway we were so glad that Tyson still feels like we are important enough to hear the news from him. He is going to have a little girl and he is so thrilled. We are still very good friend with his grandparents so we have kept in touch with him over the years. Now this old girl will have to go to bed early again after that shocking bit of news.

Hi to anyone I didn't mention. lovely to read all the posts again instead of checking just one or two.

Pic 1 & 2 is an ae NOID. it has been suggested its disticantha???? will have to look that one up but if someone can confrm it will save me looking.
3. is a lovely ae called electra or rajah. we have both but they look identical. we have quite a few lovely big plants but so far this year no sign of the gorgeous infloresence. soon maybe?
4. is our ae freckles just starting to flower in time for our sale. unfortunately it didn't help us get rid of any pups. maybe it needed to be a bit more advanced.
5. is ae nigre which was popular on the weekend. could have sold more if I had them but they are all pupping so soon I will have a lot more. Think I still have 3 or 4 left.

Anyway. time for bed now.
Night all.