Australian and New Zealand Gardening: BROMELIADS FOR NOVICES & ADDICTS APRIL 2012, 4 by splinter1804

splinter1804 wrote:
Hi everyone,

At long last I’ve finally started sorting out my plants and making a list of their locations so I can find them quickly. I thought I’d do it in a day but by the end of yesterday I’d only done four benches so it looks like it will be a while yet before I finish.

Colleen – It seems the boys are now going through the big anti-climax after their “big trip”, just too much to take in all in one go, but once it is absorbed your ears are then going to cop the lot.

Your plants seemed to have arrived OK, just a couple of bent leaves which will soon straighten out. It’s always good for me to get feedback (especially pictures) from customers so I can see the condition of the plants after they arrive. I then know if my type of packaging is the right way to go.

I know I have been very disappointed with the condition of some of the plants I have received in the post previously; one lot had “pin pricks” over all of the leaves where the lady sending them hadn’t wrapped them in paper first (she didn’t want to squash them) and the spikes on the leaves had pricked the leaves of every plant they came in contact with. It was unfortunate as these were pretty good plants and I paid a fair bit for them which makes it disappointing when you have to wait for at least a year for a pup to make into a nice plant. Another lot had been packed “wet” and when they were unwrapped had scorch marks all over the leaves either due to being left in the heat or due to the cold temperature in the hold of the plane. A lot of people don’t realise just how cold it can get in the hold of a plane this is why they need good insulation. So I now always pack in polystyrene boxes if I have any the correct size and since doing so haven’t had any problems.

Breeindy – I think the advice Karen has given you is “spot on”. Another factor to take into account is the temperatures where you live, I know in our area (which is cooler than some states) we are told by the “experts” not to take off pups between the end of March and start of September, but that’s down here. The old rule used to be to wait until the pup was one third the size of the mother but it’s been found with experience that if you follow this rule your plants just keep getting smaller and smaller. It’s much better for the pup to wait until it’s a decent size and has its own roots, that way you can take them off at any time without any setbacks. The downside to this is that you won’t get as many pups, but you will get much better and stronger plants.

Karen also makes a point that’s often over looked, and that is the chance of the pup being overcrowded by the mother plant and if left on for too long the pup will be deformed somewhat and you therefore need to remove them at a smaller size to prevent this. Usually if a pup is taken too small and without roots during the colder times of the year, it will just sit in the pot and “sulk” and it won’t be until the weather starts to warm up again (usually in spring that it will start to really grow again. So you see there are a lot of variables to take into consideration. I know that some professional nurseries take pups off at what I would call ridiculously small sizes just so they can get more plants, but then they are professionals with growing conditions which are often automatically controlled to give optimum results.

Karen – It’s interesting that those seedlings are Allan Freeman hybrids. I hadn’t seen any of his that were radial reds up until now and didn’t know he was following that breeding path, but then I’m not surprised, as he’s bred every colour in the rainbow from what I’ve seen, and nice shapes as well. He has done some amazing hybrids and I think all brom growers should be grateful for what he has done as there are certainly a lot of champions amongst them.

Jenny – One of the main rules of brom growing is “good light equals good colour” it’s as simple as that, and just to prove this point, today I’ll take pic’s of two of the same plants, one grown in low light and one in high light. I’ll post these two pic’s tomorrow and the difference in colour of these two plants will support what I’m saying. The other thing to remember is that good light doesn’t necessarily mean “full sun”; this can often harm a lot of plants.

Wendy –Thanks for your kind offer of seed, I’m sure these young people will appreciate it greatly.
Your pic of a “mature” Neo. ‘Sweet Dreams’ x ‘Painted Desert’ really provides an example of what Allan Freeman is capable of and is a beautiful plant. Do you know Allan Freeman, and is he still hybridizing or has he given it up? I did hear on the grape vine that he was unwell and wasn’t hybridizing any more but I don’t know how much truth is in that as we don’t get much accurate news from Queensland down here.

It’s interesting what you say about Neo ‘Golden King’ previously being called Neo. Kathleen (albeit unregistered) and it’s good to seed you doing the responsible thing by showing both names on the name tag. I got a plant (I don’t remember its name) from Sue which had gone through the same process of two names, (one registered and one not) and Sue had done the same thing and mentioned both names on the tag in the same way that you have.

I think growers often forget that a name tag can often carry a lot of valuable information apart from the plant name, if you are willing to just go to the trouble of writing it. It can be an “on-going” recorded history (in some sort of abbreviated code) of the life of the plant with details such as date it was potted, size when potted, fertilizer used and quantity, person it was purchased from and any problems with the plant when potted, number of pups previously taken etc. It’s all handy when evaluating the progress of the plant when next it’s potted up and certainly worth doing.


Now a few more pic’s to finish with, first Pic.1 which shows a few Billbergia pups which I finally got around to potting up Pic. 2 is Billbergia Kip which grows to three feet high and takes on a nice rosey colour when given good light. Pic 3 is a NOID which a friend gave to me and try as I may I can't find a name for it. Pic 4 Aechmea Fasciata variegata (L) and Ae Orlandiana (R) and finally Pic 5 which is from a pup I got from Tash quite a while back and which the Bower Birds stole the name tag out of, so if you're reading this Tash could you please ID it for me? Or anyone else for that matter. (Sorry about the poor pic quality), I don't know what happened there, I must have moved.

All the best, Nev.