Australian and New Zealand Gardening: Bromeliads For Novices and Addicts - October 2014, 3 by splinter1804

splinter1804 wrote:
Hi everyone (Even those who just read and won’t post) – We had a bit of a mixed up day yesterday (weather-wise), overcast in the morning, then a bit of rain, followed by westerly winds and fine and sunny in the afternoon. I ask you; how am I supposed to plan my day under those conditions?

Brian – I forgot to mention about the Ques. ‘Tim Ploughman’, it’s not a good idea to remove pups until it gets into a reasonable sized clump and even then, take a two or three plant division. Single pups or divisions seem to take a long time to re-establish themselves.

Trish – There seems to be a lot of confusion around ‘Hot Gossip’, ‘Predator’, ‘Predatress’, ‘Anna 39’, ‘Wild Gossip’, Milagro and Garnish. They were American bred and some came into Australia under formula name and were named and registered here while others were named and registered in US and then imported under the registered (American) name.

When you look them up on the BCR, you find ambiguous statements like; Predator has links with 'Hot Gossip' & 'Predatress’; Garnish has links with 'Wild Gossip' and possibly 'Milagro’; Hot Gossip has links with 'Predator' and 'Predatress'; Predatress is a variegated sport of 'Predator' and has links with 'Hot Gossip'. So is it any wonder that confusion exists over who’s who?

Producing all of those pups on ‘Blushing Tiger’ wasn’t (as you said) "creating a miracle". It was just matter of trying something new which I hadn’t done before and it paid off. In fact I’m sorry I did it now because when you think that each pup will have at least one pup of its own during the next year, I’ll be overrun with ‘Blushing Tigers’ and I don’t have any spare space as it is; so probably not the best experiment to try in the first place. This particular plant seems to also self-pollinate readily, as every plant I have that’s flowered is full of seed capsules none of which were pollinated by me.

As for Domino versus Auroa; the only thing on the BCR that sounds remotely like ‘Auroa’ is ‘Aurora’ which is a cross between Neo. sarmentosa x [Neo. olens x (compacta x 'Fireball')]. This obviously isn’t the same plant as the foliage is golden yellow in colour.

Looking at your pictures now and I can tell you that the Ae. nudicaulis was known as rubra for many years here in Australia, but it is registered as Aechmea 'Xavante', To see some nice pic’s go to: http://registry.bsi.org/?genus=AECHMEA&id=623#623

A lot of people don’t know that the plant in your second picture (princeps) is also a species and not a hybrid. There are several different forms of it and I have a different one called Neo. princeps ‘Rainbow’ (Pic.1)

I love your Neo mini ‘Ink Spots’, could you put my name on a list for a pup when you get a spare please? I also have both Neo. 'Festiva' and Ae. Foster's 'Freckles' but I’m afraid without your Queensland sunshine I can’t get much colour into either.

I’ll finish now with a few pic’s, firstly Neo. princeps ‘Rainbow’, and next a few spotted ones just for Teresa 2 Neo 'Midnight Moment', 3 Neo. 'Wine and Gold', 4 Neo.'Powder Puff' and 5 Neo.'Gold Fever' x 'Barbarian'.

All the best, Nev.