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

ianperry wrote:
Hi all, another dry and windy day here. The wind did not blow any plants over so that is a bonus. I tried to cross my mauve centred toothy concentrica with fancy pants today both ways. It is now in the lap of the gods as to what happens. What I am looking for with this cross is a mauve centred dark outer leafed Neo. I went to Bunnings today and looked at the broms, 1 interested me a bit. It looks like a dark outer leaf form of Tangerine still misshapen from packing. It is still there. I bought a chainsaw instead and some bunching palms felt it's bite. They are getting too congested and dropping fronds where i want some of my broms. Thin out time.I did nothing with my hooks today but thought about them a bit. The ones I have seen don't look too hard to make.
I looked closely at Coleen's Ae burgundy and can see a lot of Ae Mirlo in it. The naturally shiny leaves and also the dimples in it as well. This could be coming from the breeding.
Bree, your plant does not look like an orchid to me but with the red stripes on the underneath it does have the characteristics of being a Guzmania. It also has soft bodied scale on it.Love lila, mine didn't colour up that well but that could have been because of the light.
Shirley Little Africa will darken up quite a lot in a lot of light, almost as dark as Mandella.
Sue, it looks like DG got hold of your piccies, thought they were a deck of cards and shuffled the pack. Ah well just gives me something to winge about.
Have a good one.
Ian
Pic 1 Ananas tricolour multi head and multi fruit
Pic 2 N mini fireball striata
Pic 3 N mini Queen of spots
Pic 4 N mini Gympie perfection