Australian and New Zealand Gardening: BROMELIADS FOR NOVICES & ADDICTS JULY & AUGUST 2012, 5 by splinter1804

splinter1804 wrote:
Hi everyone – Another nice day here again today and just when I thought “you beaut”, I’ll get a bit of work done and knock over a few more of those jobs for our show, I twisted my bloody knee and am now hobbling around like a cripple, so it looks like I’ll catch up on a bit of computer work I’ve been putting off instead.

Shirley – I love the two plants you posted pic’s of and Ensign is one of my all-time favorites. I’ve tried to grow it here for years with no luck. After three attempts I finally suspected it may just be a clone which didn’t like my conditions, as all of the plants I had tried were all from the same clone which was the only available in our local area. I had never had a problem growing other types of Ae orlandianas, just this particular Ensign. So I sent out an S.O.S. to a couple of my northern brom growing friends to see if I could get a different clone and bingo! I got two, one from northern NSW and the other from Queensland.

At this stage they are both growing extremely well under the same conditions where my other one wouldn’t grow. So the moral of the story is, if at first you don’t succeed, don’t give up. Try and source a plant from a different area and see if that makes a difference; it did for me.

Breeindy – I’ve never taken much notice of the spines as I’ve been too busy just trying to grow it; however the difference between the Ensign and the Ensign Reverse is just that, they are reversed; Ensign has white leaf margins and a greenish centre area while the reverse Ensign has green leaf margins with the creamy white centre area. I still like Ensign the best though as it gets much more colour (at least down here anyway)

Wendy – I’m looking forward to receiving the seed and quite frankly I don’t really care who or what pollinated them with what; they should be very interesting given the plants you had in flower at the time, but I must make a list of them too so we have an idea of who the other parent may have been.

I would certainly like a pup of Neo. ‘Hula Girl’ if you have one to spare and also one of Ae. Macroclamys if you have one. Send me a D Mail and tell me what would you like in exchange?

I’ve just harvested a few more seed pods from some (small) Neo. crosses I did using Neo ‘Small World’, Neo ‘Cheery Day’ and Neo ‘Break of Day’ as the seed parents and the offspring could be quite an interesting mixture.

There was quite a bit of seed so anyone wanting a bit, just let me know and I’ll send you some. I can’t guarantee the viability though as I haven’t even sown mine yet so you just have to take your chances.

Karen – I don’t know Bill. ‘Rocky Road’, but it certainly has nice colour. The pic of the plant on the chair looks a bit like one we grow down here called Neo ‘Stormy Forest’ and it just proves the old theory that brom’s do better growing “on” something rather than “in” something. As for Vr. Angela, well it can still hold its own against the best of them when it’s grown in good light, still a beautiful vriesea, and Vr. hieroglyphica, well it just keeps on going and going and is a beautiful “eye catching” plant.

I meant to tell you all that I heard from Colleen and she’s watching in occasionally and her back is gradually coming good. She also says that the two young grandsons have been really good and helping a lot, so isn’t that great?

That will do me for today and I’ll finish with a few more pic’s hopefully in the right order this time. The first is Nidularium ‘Litmus’ and if you look very closely you can just see a hint of blue starting on the edge of the scapes. Pic 2 is a Billbergia seedling from Bill. Hallelujah x Strawberry (not my cross unfortunately), Pic 3 is my Bill. Hallelujah very much in need of tidying up or even divided (I haven’t decided yet) Pic 4 and 5 are very similar and are two seedlings colouring up for the first time from a cross between Neo. Concentrica x ‘Burgundy Beauty’ (unreg.) and are obviously both showing the Neo. concentrica colouring combined with the smaller size of the Burgundy Beauty.

All the best, Nev.