Australian and New Zealand Gardening: Bromeliads for Novices and Addicts - August 2013, 3 by splinter1804

splinter1804 wrote:
Hi everyone – I didn't get any brom work done yesterday as I was at the museum all day, however if the wind stays away today I hope to continue on with the multitude of unfinished chores I have.

Sue – You're lucky you missed the wind we had, it was windy all day but it wasn't until about 3-4 o'clock that it really became savage. According to the paper this morning, quite a lot of trees down and roof damage from the winds and the S.E.S. still attending to calls.

Cody – Hi Cody and Alex, don't forget to practice your “Strine”. Oh sorry I forgot to tell you, “strine” = Australian.

You make me very envious when you say you walked two miles today, I used to love going for a 4km walk every morning but unfortunately it is now just a memory, but keep it up as it's a great way to exercise and doesn't cost you a fortune like gyms do either.

Debi – Hi! It's always nice to see a newbie posting and I hope you make it an on-going thing as we all like to share pic's and cultural information about our plants.

I'm not too sure about the plants in your pic's except to say they are all bromeliads and all look to be from the Neoregelia family. If the one in the first pic is smaller than the others it could be one of the Neo. Fireball hybrids but other than that I have no idea. The plant in Pic.2 looks to me like Neo. McWilliamsii or even Neo. Compacta (both have reasonably long stolons). The one in Pic.3 could be one of the may forms of Neo. Cruenta or one of the many look alike hybrids. No doubt you will get answers from some of our other growers and then you can go to the Bromeliad Cultivar Registry at the following web site: http://botu07.bio.uu.nl/bcg/bcr/index.php or the FCBS Photo Index at http://fcbs.org/ and check the pictures of the suggested plants against your pic's.

I hope we continue to hear from you as I don't think we have any growers in the Ipswich area with the nearest being Jen or Shirley who are both over an hour from you.

Ian – That's good news that you've been able to get a roll of shade cloth much cheaper than you can locally. The reason for the cheaper price is possibly that this company sells a lot more than your local supplier and can therefore buy it in in larger quantities at a reduced price, in other words a case of supply and demand.

You will find this with everything but especially agricultural supplies especially pots, hangers fertilisers etc. as the more you buy the cheaper they get. We buy a lot of stuff through our society and to give an example, a plastic pot hanger costs me .30c and the same hanger at a local nursery is $1.25 and at another nursery further down the coast they are $1.50. When you think that the distributor is still making a profit out of the .30c price, the mind boggles at the profit these nurseries are making.

When I grew orchids years ago, about six of us would combine our pot order and buy direct from the wholesaler and save heaps, and even now it's still possible to do the same with some of the larger companies and I think Garden City Plastics is probably the cheapest and I know if the order is over a certain amount, the delivery is free as well.

I think the idea of meeting at a different member's place each month is a far better (and cheaper) way of holding your meeting than in a hall. It's amazing how much extra information and hints you pick up by just looking at other collections as everyone has different ideas on how to do things and what works best for them. It is also a much more friendly environment as well, more like a family; the problem is though that as your group grows it will become too large for this type of meeting and then you will have to meet at a hall or similar venue, so make the most of what you have while you have it.

While looking at your pic of Neo.'Gespacho'/'Gespachio' I noticed how different it looks to mine and when I checked it on the BCR I see that both the BCR and your plant have the lighter colouration in toward the centre of the cup whereas mine (Pic.1) has it out near the leaf tips. This now poses some questions; is mine wrongly named? Is the plant a bit unstable? (which would explain the differences) or are there similar cultivars from the same seed batch which were all given the same name? Or is it a hybrid from a cross using 'Gespacho'/'Gespachio' as a parent? Does anyone else have this plant and if so, can you please post a pic of your plant for comparison?

About the elks and Styrofoam, do you fix the Styrofoam onto a board so you have a solid base to attach a bit of chain or wire to use as a hanger?

Shirley – I think you got that wrong; I do appreciate things of beauty but just not things with prickles. My hate phobia with prickles started way back as a small boy when I was chasing a ball and ran in to my aunty's rose garden. These were the old style heirloom roses and full of thorns not like the hybrids you get today with hardy any thorns at all on some. I can still remember lying on her kitchen table while her and Mum pulled out the thorns and then applied the old black ointment.

Like you, I don't have a 20 cm space at the top of DG either and it's good to see they have fixed it up so the pic's we post are now on the one line instead of four on top with one below. I guess with all of these sites they are trying for improvement all the time but sometimes things don't work out as they expect. I would like to see them lift the limit of just five pic's per post though as I remember on the old Garden Web site I could post pic's of our show thirty or so all in the one post and that made it very convenient to do; but then I suppose it was done to prevent people from tying things up with their pic's all of the time.

I like your Neo.'Silverado'. It's always good to have something with a very different colour to break up the other colours. I have an unusual similar coloured but smaller plant called Neo.'Wait-a-While' and I'll see if I can get a decent pic to post. You've done a good job with your Ae.'Aztec Gold', that's a beautiful example of how it should look. Your Vr. 'The Daintree' x 'Whitebands' reminds me that I have some seed of Vr. fenestralis x 'Whitebands', and if anyone wants some just tell me, and what can I say about your Ae.'Ensign' a really beautiful plant and certainly one of my favourite Aechmeas.

That's it for today and the first pic is of my (so called) Neo.'Gespacho'/'Gespachio' grown beneath 75% beige shade cloth. The next four pic's are of plants in the shade house I converted from the old vegie garden and as you can see are also in need of some dead-leafing.

All the best, Nev.