Australian and New Zealand Gardening: Bromeliads for Novices and Addicts - September 2014, 3 by splinter1804

splinter1804 wrote:
Hi fellow bromeladdicts - I don’t know what your weather is doing this morning but ours has taken a turn for the worst and the warm sunny days we had last week have turned into a cold and wet windy day with gale winds forecast for this afternoon, so not a good day for being out in the garden.

Shirley – Firstly, thanks heaps for starting the new thread, I though as we were starting spring a new thread was appropriate and who better to start it than you. If you like to send me a step by step “guide for computer idiots”, maybe next time I can try and start it without having to worry you all the time.

That Neo. ‘Lovely Lady’ in your picture is a great example of just how good this plant is when well grown. It is probably the best from a stable of champions which all came from the “Aussie Dream” grex which was created by Bob Larnack back in the 1990’s from a breeding of Neo.'Meyendorffii' (variegated) x olens 'Marie'. To see some of the others, go to the following link: http://registry.bsi.org/?genus=NEOREGELIA&id=2992#2992

We did have a great family get- together, and even though they are too infrequent these days, they are still very enjoyable occasions when they do occur. Thanks for confirming I have Ninja and Strawberry already on my wish list, I thought I may have but wasn’t sure as the old memory doesn’t recall what’s stored on it too well any more.

I’m looking at you pic’s now and once again it’s another kaleidoscope of colour. It’s difficult to know where to start, but then where better than at Pic.1 which continues with the saga of Neo ‘Pink Star’ with yet another different plant with this same name. This plant is different again to the plant I have of the same name which differs to the one on the BCR. I must say your plant has wonderful symmetrical shape combined with nice pastel colours and certainly a wonderful plant and another for my wish list.

Although they are great plants, I won’t comment on ‘Gladiator’ and ‘Old Love Letters’ as I’ve commented on them before, but Neo.’Dyn-o-mite’ in Pic.3 is one I’ve overlooked on many occasions as I thought it was just a similar looking plant to Neo.‘Perfection’, which although a nice plant, has been around since 1978 so nothing new here.

However, when I looked at the parents of Neo.’Dyn-o-mite’ on the BCR, I thought it would have to be a miniature as its parents were Neo. (carolinae variegated x ‘Fireball’) x Neo. (‘Fireball’ x pauciflora) i.e. it had miniatures in the breeding of both seed and pollen parents, however the size given is 25cm which puts it clearly into the “Midi” size which just goes to show you can never be sure when you start mucking around with genetics. Just for the record Shirley, what size is your plant?

The other one I’d like to comment on is Neo.‘Fire & Ice’, on looking it up I see that it isn’t a registered name which is unfortunate as judging by its markings, I thought it may have had either Neo. ‘Burgundy Moss’ (Pic.2) or Neo.’Fairy Dust’ (Pic.3) in its history and I’ve added these two pic’s for comparison to see what others think.

With your second lot of pictures, Neo.’Apricot Nectar’, Neo. ‘Mango Ice’, Neo ‘Downs Autumn’ and Neo.’Chirripo’, they are all wonderful plants that we all know are worthy of a place in any collection but the Neo ‘Skotak carolinae’ has me scratching my head a bit as I’ve never seen or heard of it and it isn’t listed on the BCR either. In my opinion it’s a plant almost to the standard of ‘Lovely Lady’, but where did it come from, who bred it, was it Skotak, and what more do you know about it? Questions, questions, questions, I know, but my inquisitive mind needs to know.

Teresa – Oh how much wisdom in what you say about comparing plants at different stages of maturity. This seems to be the main reason for disappointment when people buy plants by mail order; they see a nice picture of a mature fully coloured plant beside an advert. for a “pup” for sale. The inexperienced growers think that the pup they are buying will arrive with the same colours as the adult plant in the advert. When a green un-coloured pup arrives they think they have been sent the wrong plant. All of this can be avoided if all sellers followed the example of the good sellers, and showed a pic of the mature plant (what the pup will turn out like in the future) and a picture of the actual pup for sale (as it is now), this way everyone’s happy.

Colleen – So good to see you back again, and it’s as I suspected; you did catch the bug off the boys eventually. Anyway, hopefully you’re on the mend again and will soon be back to normal.

That plant you enquired about in one of my previous posts, was that the Neo.’Allan’s Marbles’? If so, that could be the one you speak of as I think you may have got a pup from me a while back or it may even be Neo.‘Ice White River’ as I think you got one of them also and that’s a very prolific pupper.

That’s it for today and I was trying to find a picture of the miniature Neo.’Domino’, (chlorosticta x pauciflora) with accurate colour for Brian to compare with his NOID. The plant in Pic.1 is the closest I can get, but the true colour is much darker than shown in the picture, it’s very dark purple and almost black; however it’s also one of those colours that’s difficult to capture with a camera. Pic. 2 is Neo. ‘Fairy Dust’ and Pic.3 is Neo. ‘Burgundy Moss’. Next is a pic for the Till. growers, Till. Butzii and finally for the Vriesea growers, Vr. platynema variegata.

All the best, Nev.