Australian and New Zealand Gardening: OUR BROMELIADS INTO 2015.. , 5 by splinter1804

splinter1804 wrote:
He everyone – It seems like the cooler weather is here finally as there has been a cool southerly breeze blowing since yesterday afternoon and it has certainly lowered the temperature. It will now be possible to work in the yard without melting away in the heat and high humidity.

Yesterday I finished off the cleaning up in the top shade house and started a bit of re-potting in the garage which I hope to finish today; then it’s into the front garden to tidy that up and replace a few plants that haven’t done as well as expected in that exposed location.

Jean – I’m afraid that as well as tidying everything up, all of my dead-leafing has also made the hundreds of new pups more obvious and although they look OK at present as I have bought a bit of time by cutting away all the dying mothers to make more growing room for them, ultimately they will have to be removed and re-potted with nowhere to put them. If only someone driving a big Mercedes would knock on the door and say they need a thousand plants for their garden…… dream on old fella.

I love your paintings; it must be great to have that extra skill, especially with winter coming on and the outside weather getting colder.

Looking at your pic of Red Chestnut and Megan reminded me of what I read and saw in an article on another forum. Apparently it isn’t unusual for Vr. Megan to often produce an unusual sport in its pups. I guess you’ll now be like me and watching like a hawk for any new unusual pups.

I don’t know what your NOID in Pic. 4 is, but I think it’s equally as good as, if not better than Beefsteak. I like the pale colours which aren’t as “in your face” as much as Beefsteak colours. It could even be a Beefsteak hybrid, as Beefsteak was bred from carolinae crossed with a chlorosticta hybrid and as you know, once you introduce a hybrid into the equation anything is possible.

Obviously the afternoon sun isn’t as hot down your way as it is here; if I had plants in all afternoon sun they would be showing a lot of heat damage after a couple of weeks. I’d still be keeping a close watch on them when summer comes around again just the same.

Your next picture of the albo-marginated Neo. Enchantment reminded me that when cleaning up around the garden I found an old Mother of the plain version of Enchantment which I had put there in retirement and she had produce the unexpected bonus of three lovely big pups; something else I have to now re-pot.

As I said above, I love your paintings, and while looking at the latest of the carnations and butterflies, I though wouldn’t it be great if you could in some way treat it with the beautiful carnation perfume. I remember once there were some “scratch and sniff” samples of different fragrances getting around for a while. Wouldn’t it be great if it were possible to treat the painting with a carnation fragrance so that each time you breathed on it (not scratched it) the fragrance would be released thereby adding another dimension to the art.

Teresa – I too am anxiously waiting to see how those pups turn out. I imagine I can improve the shape somewhat, but it’s getting the colour right that will be hard as it’s going to be difficult to replicate the amount of light it was getting when growing out in the front garden. I had another garden grown “cull” which produced unusual white tips on the leaves and I removed the pups and re-potted them all and put them in a well-lit part of the shade house in the hope of replicating the same unusual markings; that was a couple of generations ago and as yet no success. It’s all about duplicating the growing conditions and in particular the amount of light they were getting which isn’t as easy as it seems.

I’ll finish now with firstly a pic of the plant with the white leaf tips I mentioned above and Pic’c 2-5 are plants from the same grex as the dark one I photographed in the front garden that you both liked. These were all shade house grown plants and one in particular is showing more dark colouring than the others.

All the best, Nev.