Australian and New Zealand Gardening: BROMELIADS FOR MARCH ....2014, 4 by splinter1804

splinter1804 wrote:
Hi everyone – I hope you're all well on this beautiful Sunday morning and looking forward to being able to get out into your gardens for a while today. The weather here was sounding a bit ominous last night with lots of thunder and lightning, however it amounted to nothing more than half a dozen spots of rain and the promise of another nice day.

I'd no sooner finished the frog pond project yesterday when I unintentionally started another; I was walking through my Vriesea/Guzmania shade house and I saw a hanging plant with a few dead leaves that needed removing. I got it down and cleaned it up and before I realised it I was in the middle of a dead-leafing session. I ended the afternoon with half of the hanging plants cleaned up and today I'll finish the remaining hanging plants as well as what's on the bench. The good thing is that while doing this I also found quite a few Vrieseas which are putting up flower spikes; and as I've previously stated, there's something new to see every day.

Yesterday also saw me lifting out a large clump of Neo.'Sheba' from the garden in the open section between the frog pond and the top shade house. This has now been divided in two and transplanted in two sections of the garden beside the side path to the front door of the house. It's a north facing location so hopefully the plants will make good use of the sun and show their nice pink flush once they become established.

This now leaves me an area under shade cloth where I can accommodate a few of the larger Neo's from the Neo shade house thereby freeing up some more bench space in there; so you see, its a continual on-going "juggling act", much like Wendy describes when she writes about moving her plants around while the paths have their maintenance.

Jean – I use galvanised tie wire to make my extensions for the hangers, I get it at Bunnings about $10 for 50m... or is that 100m? .....I don't remember, but I know it's good value and does what I want it to do. It's plenty strong enough to do the job and a lot easier to bend than that high tensile fencing wire which springs back every time you bend it. I don't know if you have a Bunnings or Mitre 10 but you should be able to get it at any decent hardware store, co-op or Country Store.

I know Bill. 'Red Raven' well, I have a plant of it and have had it for many years. The best I ever grew it was one year when it was hanging about a foot below the "old roof" of the Neo. shade house when it still had the original black shade cloth on it. Late in the afternoon when the afternoon sun was behind this plant, it seemed to take on an iridescence and “glow”; a bit like a raven (crow) will appear to have that purple/green iridescence when the sun shines on it at a certain angle, and I sometimes thought that's where it got the name 'Red Raven'. I think at that particular time it was just a combination of everything being in just the right place at the right time as I've never been able to grow it as well nor get that wonderful colour since; but as I tell people who are after Bill's, it's an “oldie” but still a ”goodie”.

A brom friend of mine (the one who owned the great Vr. ospinae gruberii collection I posted pic's of last year) also has a great collection of Ae. orlandianas. He doesn't hang his plants but grows them in a built up garden among lots and lots of rocks. I don't know if it's the reflected light and warmth from the rocks or not, but he gets some wonderful colours as well.

You mention about how slow your Vriesea seedlings are and say, “I may see them get to an inch high by next year”. I found with my Vr. hieroglyphica seedlings, the larger they got the quicker they grew and the first year they seemed to just stand still, and then when spring came, all of a sudden they just “took off”. It's OK to give them a bit of half strength liquid fertiliser every two weeks (once they have five leaves is the recommended size) to hurry them along if you so wish; I don't as I can't keep up with the speed my seedlings are growing normally and still can't catch up with the potting up.

Wendy – Pleased to hear that you're not feeling quite as sore this morning. You say your finger hurts when you re-pot plants and then say,”couple of nice grazes on the top”. I hope your Tetanus vaccination is up to date because open wounds and the bugs in potting mixes don't mix very well.

That seedling of Neo. ampullacea x 'Blushing Tiger' in your picture certainly looks different and nothing like either of the parents. What's more, look at those leaf spikes; size wise compared to that finger, they're pretty savage looking.

It does have a bit of a look of Ae. orlandiana about it now that you mention it, so I'll ask the question; is there any way you could have mixed it up with some of the orlandiana seedlings you're growing? Either way, it's an interesting looking plant and I'm curious to see how it will mature and what sort of flower it will produce as that will tell you if it's a Neo. or an Aechmea for sure. Also something I never thought about is that there's always a possibility that “Mother Natures Little Helpers” may have been experimenting with bi-generic crossings and that it could also possibly be a xNeomea .......Food for thought.

Your Bill seedlings are showing good colour at this early stage; have they been fed? I ask this because if they have, the colour will only get better as the nitrogen in the fertiliser is used up. The Bill.'Maya' F2 is already showing darker colour than the usual Bill.'Maya', and the Hallelujah F2 is also showing promising colour as you would expect as it always seems to pass on the colour to everything it's crossed with (including itself), so as an F2, theoretically you could expect it will have improved colour compared to the 'Hallelujah' parent.

Speaking of Billbergias, I see when looking through the BCR “What's New” section yesterday that you've finally registered Bill. 'Fruit Salad'. Well Done! That's good news as it's certainly deserving of a registered name with that kaleidoscope of colour it displays so beautifully. I can now alter the name tag on mine from Bill.'Fruit Salad' (unreg.) to just Bill.'Fruit Salad'.

My old mind must be playing tricks with me though as I see you've listed the ownership trail as: Bob Cross > Phyllis Hobbs> Wendy Perske and I thought when you originally discussed this plant on DG some time back, you mentioned it was John Catlan who bred it and when you said it needed a name it was he who suggested to you jokingly to just call it 'Fruit Salad'.

I must have been day dreaming though, either that or hypnotised by its beauty. Maybe you obtained it during one of your brom purchasing safaris and you just happened to mention John Catlan as someone you visited at the same time and that gave me that impression it was his creation and he who suggested the name. Anyway, it's a beautiful Bill with a very appropriate name and you've done the right thing in registering it.

Tell me, how long ago did you submit the registration application? The reason I ask is that I submitted one a while back now and still haven't heard or seen anything and I'm starting to wonder whether it went through and if Geoff actually got it. I do realise and accept that he must get bombarded with heaps of registration requests and as his is a voluntary position these things do take time, my only concern was that he may not have received it.

Cody - Hi Cody, I think you said that Alex is home this weekend so I hope you both enjoy your time in each others company.

Theresa – Good to hear every thing's OK with you, hubby and the house. When I heard about the flooding on the news and you hadn't posted for a couple of days I was a bit concerned you may have copped it pretty bad, however it appears my concern was unfounded.

Your mention of the brom's in the local garden centre is pretty normal for what we get here where I live as well; even Bunnings, Mitre 10 and the larger department stores like K-Mart and Big-W all have plants with over inflated prices and the same generic name tag which tells us that the plant is a “Bromeliad” plus some “one size fits all” cultural information on the back. I've even seen Tillandsias with the same generic name tags and information as that on Guzmanias in the same shop. Hows that for getting prospective new brom growers off to a bad start?

I think you'd better go to the Warehouse or a nursery and buy yourself a nice brom before hubby changes his mind; it's not just women that do this you know.

Time to go again already and today's pictures are a few random variegated Neoregelias for those of you who like these colours.

All the best, Nev.