Australian and New Zealand Gardening: Bromeliads For Novices and Addicts - October 2014, 4 by splinter1804

splinter1804 wrote:
Hi everyone – Well Trish and Teresa anyway; come on the rest of you, get out of bed it’s the weekend and time to get out in the garden.

Trish – Your mention of your latest pictures of your NOID makes me wonder how it is that you and Shirley get such a marvelous collection of NOIDS, many of which are often better quality than a lot of the well known and high quality named plants. Down here most NOIDS are just mediocre plants which obviously haven’t been named because they just didn’t "cut the mustard".

I think I may have the answer though; Alan Freeman was a prolific Queensland hybridiser of high quality Neoregelias and was responsible for breeding thousands of high quality plants. Many of these finished up with Keith Golinski at his “Bromagic” bromeliad nursery. I don’t know whether Keith bought them; was given them; or was selling them on behalf of Alan, the thing is they were sold through “Bromagic”. Keith registered many of these brom’s on Alan’s behalf and the BCR lists 957 of them. However, there were just as many if not more which never got registered. Many of these plants as well as ones with registration pending were sold under a “number” and this is where my theory comes into play.

As we all know, many backyard brom growers will buy a plant simply because it appeals to them and they don’t care whether it has a name, number or any other form of identification. In fact I know of many hobbyists who simply discard the ID as they think the label detracts from the look of the plant. I would suggest that to the majority of these people a tag with a number on it would be meaningless and something and would be quickly discarded. Many of these nameless plants would also later find their way into the markets and this is where the bulk of these high quality NOIDS originated, of that I am convinced. Because you and Shirley are both Queenslanders you obviously have access to a greater number of these plants which originated in your state.

Trish, your Mum sounds like a wonderful lady and the things she can still do is “mind boggling”. I’m the same age and these days find it difficult to even walk out the front to get the paper off the lawn each morning. I hope she continues to have a healthy and active life for many more years to come. She sounds very much like the elderly lady in our brom society I mentioned yesterday who talks to her plants, she’s now 86 going on 21 and still going strong, so maybe it’s having plants to talk to every day keeps her young and healthy.

I too have always like the look of roses, however it now seems it’s only the older varieties which have the beautiful perfume, and although the hybridists have bred some magnificent plants in beautiful colours, it seems to be at the expense of the perfume.

You misunderstood what I said I do with my cyclamens when you said, “plant the pot when the plant is dying down in the fish pond”. What I do is plant the cyclamen (still in the pot) in the soil surrounding the frog pond.

Thanks for adding my name to your list of people wanting pups from Chiquita Linda and your NOID and to answer your question, “Is Chiquita Linda the smallest Mini out there”, the answer is no. Neo. lilliputiana which is a species, is much smaller and is also the seed parent of Chiquita Linda. (See Pic.1)

I’m looking at your pictures now and I find your Vr.Hieorglyphica hybrid very interesting with its unusual leaf markings and especially the inflorescence which reminds me of a xGuzvriesea. Please don’t forget to post pictures when the flowers eventually open.

It’s also interesting what we can learn on these forums; when I looked at your Neo.’Stormy Forest’ I thought, “that’s not right”, but when I checked the BCR I found it was right, and the large burgundy coloured Neo. that’s been commonly grown down here for many years under the name of ‘Stormy Forest’ is in fact incorrect, so now I’ll have some info to pass on at the next brom. society meeting. I like both your Neo.'Stormy Forest' and Neo. 'Sweetheart' ; they’re nice shaped little mini’s.

I also like the look of your Neo.'Franke' which I find is unregistered as so many of these names are these days. I just can’t understand why a person will give a plant a name but won’t go the extra step of registering it when it’s such a simple process. In my opinion, if a plant is worth giving a name to, it deserves to have that name registered….(Cranky old man again).

Teresa – What you’ve done is a new take on the old liquid “chook poo” (or what we used to call “fowlsh”) liquid manure. The elderly lady in our brom society who I often speak of and who grows the beautiful brom’s, makes her own liquid fertiliser out of Dynamic Lifter and has done so for years. She puts a bucket full in an old pillow case and soaks it in a large garbage can of water. After a couple of weeks she dilutes the resulting liquid with water to make it the colour of weak tea and this is applied to the whole plant and potting mix.

With your link, all I can get is “This content is currently unavailable” and nothing else.

That’s for today; Pic 1 is Neo. lilliputina, Pic.2 is Neo.‘Crimson Glow’ (Red Fleck) Not much in the shape department but unusual “glowing” red flecks when viewed from below with the light behind it, Pic.3 Neo ‘Apricot Nectar’ one of my favourite colours, Pic, 4 A nasty plant with vicious prickles but a beautiful inflorescence, Bromelia pinguin. Finally an “oldie but a goodie” with beautifully coloured foliage Vr. ‘Kent’s Sunset’.

All the best, Nev.