Australian and New Zealand Gardening: BROMELIADS FOR NOVICES & ADDICTS - NOVEMBER 2012, 5 by weed_woman

weed_woman wrote:
good morning all
Its so nice to wake up in my own bed!
Ian, I think your Canistrum is C. auranticum. I'm glad you find Cryptanthus just as troublesome as me. I can't work them out. I did hear there is a very good grower of them, somewhere here n our local area, but he keeps very quiet, and I never see any for sale at markets or on display at the botanic gardens or orchid shows, so I wonder what he does with them? might make the effort to find some contact details and see if I can get some expert advice on growing them. I don't like them all that much, but I like the pink or black zebra types. Alot look too similar to me, much like dyckias do. I wondered what happened to your photo four? It looks like it mixed up one of Trishes sentences too, the one about Joe potting up his orchid seedlings. That happens to me too, where, while I am typing, the cursor suddenly jumps into the middle of what i have already written, and I am too busy looking at the keyboard to notice.
Bree, it will be interesting to see how your blanchettiana grows. I have the very green/yellow one, one that goes a bit orangey, and another that has very strong orange, almost into the reds. I was sold a red one from an unscrupulous Ebay seller, that has turned out to be a cross between blanchettiana and another, and it doesn't cope with full sun.
Trish, its great that you are enjoying each others company, and your garden time so much. Its a nice time of year to be outside too. as for your trolley, I picked up a four wheeled metal one from mitre 10 for about $100, quite awhile ago, but I think they still come up for the same price, from time to time. It has gone the distance for about years or more, but I make sure i don't leave it out in the weather, and I give it a spray of WD40 now and then to try and stop the rust. Everything rusts here as we are only a few kilometres off the ocean. Anyway, it has a little bit of surface rust, but nothing serious. I use it daily.
All your brom beds are looking great, and I note you can pick up pots! I thought you had buried them in mulch, but can see you haven't. That makes it easy if you want to move them around eh? Is it starting to get warm up there?
Shirley, yay, you got some rain! if its anything like us, we got 2mm! pfffft! I'm sorry you didn't get to the spring sale. i honestly don't know how you could resist, but I do understand the need to get other things done. I am always trying to get my priorities right.
Your two red spotty broms look lovely. Is N. 'Justins Song' very big? I have looked at it from time to time on Ebay and wondered. I'm going to get a little package ready for you today.
I was looking at my Aechmea nudicaulis flavomarginata and noticed the albino sport was flowering. I don't know that you can call it albino, because its sort of yellow, more than white.
Photo one is the A, nudicaulis sport flowering
Photo two is a group of minis recently potted
Photo three is Neo. 'Medallion'
Photo four is a variegated N. 'Lila'
Photo five is the emerging spike on Alc. brasiliana
Sue