Australian and New Zealand Gardening: BROMELIADS FOR NOVICES AND ADDICTS - JULY 2014, 5 by splinter1804

splinter1804 wrote:
Hi everyone – It's bloody cold here too so I guess winter is here at last.

I probably won't be on here as regular for the next three weeks as we have my son and his family here on holidays and just too many things to do to fit in any one finger typing.

Colleen – That's a very interesting looking Goose in your pic., I've never seen one like that before so I looked it up on Wikipedia and it has quite an interesting history.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastopol_Goose

How times change; we rarely wore shoes when we were kids either, not even to school unless it was the annual day when the class photo's were taken. Apart from that was only special occasions if we went to church or some rello's wedding............Ah those were the days.

Trish – It sounds like you're heading the right way to burn yourself out, best slow down a bit and listen to your body..... Remember, slow and steady wins the race.

Wendy – Not nice having a brom thief around. We had one helping him/herself from the front garden and I installed two halogen sensor activated flood lights and as soon as anyone came close to the brom's, the front yard lit up like a Christmas Tree............ no more brom's stolen. A policeman friend recommended this as the best way to go and as he said, thieves prefer to operate where they can't be seen. It works for me, so probably worth thinking about for you as well, as prevention is better than cure and they're much cheaper than cameras.

As for seedlings, I was very disappointed in the Neo.'Rosea Striata' x 'Gold Fever' cross; I had hopes of some nice 'Gold Fever' spotted types or even something a bit unusual with the odd combination of spots and striations, but no; all I got were plain pastel colours some with very faint striations which eventually faded anyway. The shape wasn't too bad on some though. I did give a lot away though, so I've probably done the usual and given away all the good ones.

The Ae. recurvata x chantinii isn't one of mine as I can't grow chantinii down here as the winter's too cold. It sounds like someone was making a repeat of the cross that produced Ae. 'Eechidna'. They were nice and they would grow in colder conditions although not as prominent, the barring was there as well. See http://registry.bsi.org/?genus=AECHMEA&id=181#181 However there are still some ???? hanging over the name of the chantinii parent in this cross. # See notes on the above BCR site#

I can't help you with and ID for your pendulous Aechmea but I've sent your pic to a friend of mine to see if he can help with a name.

I'll finish today with some old show pictures. Pic.1 is Ae. pineliana minuta which is said to now be extinct in habitat, so it's up to all brom growers to keep it growing in private collections and don't let it die out completely. Pic.2 is Bill. 'Euphemie Georgia', Pic.3 is a nice example of an Ae. recurvata grown on a bit of driftwood, Pic.4 is Neo.'Guinea' an interesting little Neo. which when grown in good light can almost be yellow in colour. Finally Nidularium Innocentii purpurea.

All the best, Nev.