Australian and New Zealand Gardening: Bromeliads for Novices and Addicts - September 2014, 5 by splinter1804

splinter1804 wrote:
Hi everyone – Good to see a few posting today, maybe we can get a discussion going on some aspect of brom growing.

Teresa – You say, “It is disappointing to come up against a judge that clearly doesn't know the standard for what they are judging” and let me add that it’s disappointing to come up against a judge that doesn’t know what a scale insect is. True, we all know that the judge’s decision is final, but that doesn’t make us feel any better when we know the decision was wrong and based on an incorrect observation.

When we exhibit plants, quite a few of us (me included) always dress the top of the mix with Sphagnum Moss. This helps to make the presentation more attractive and as a secondary benefit it acts as a mulch to prevent the potting mix drying out whilst the plant is in a hall under lights for several days.

I had an experience a few years back when I had a plant disqualified because (as the head judge said), “that’s a bit of white scale”. It turned out that it was a tiny bit of dried sphagnum moss stuck to the base of the plant. When the other two judges pointed out that it was just a bit of dried Sphagnum and suggested she reverse her decision, the head judge over ruled them by saying, “I’ve made my decision and it’s final”. Obviously, that didn’t make me feel too good about the fairness of the judging from that particular judge. The good news is that she has retired from judging and won’t be judging at our show again.

Shirley – Sorry to hear you haven’t been well either. Referred pain is a strange thing; several years ago I was experiencing pain in the left side of my chest so I was sent for an X-ray. Results showed a spot on my left lung and I was then referred to a thoracic specialist who ordered other tests and more X-rays. After reading the history of my bronchial pneumonia as a child, he concluded that the spot was an old scar from that and of no subsequence or relation to the pain. When I went back to see my GP, he was on holidays, and I saw his locum who suggested the pain could be “referred pain” from a possible stomach complaint, and sure enough tests revealed I had a stomach ulcer. Shortly after treatment was started for that, the pain went away and hasn’t bothered me since. So there’s another case of referred pain which although I’d never heard of before, I’ve heard a lot about it since.

Trish – On the topic of different coloured shade cloth, there was once a very long discussion on one of the forums about this subject and just what colour shade cloth was the best for promoting good colour in brom’s. I think from memory it was unanimous that beige was the best generally, although white was good too but unfortunately seemed to encourage the growth of lichen if anywhere near trees. The next best, surprisingly was black and green which was at that time the most commonly used colour was a very poor last. There are other thing to consider also and the main one is how does the colour blend into your yard. Personally I think beige looks terrible and nowhere as good on the eye fitting in with the colours of the plants around it as green which seems so natural. However I can’t ignore the facts with my Neo’s and after one year of growing under beige, the colour was a 20% improvement than it was when plants were previously grown under green. The fact is I still hate the beige colour and much prefer green around the garden, but then you can’t have your cake and eat it too, can you?

Don’t apologise about the typo with Neo.‘Mitchii’. It’s I who should be apologising because if I had been looking more carefully I would have picked up the name ‘Mitchi’ right next to where I was looking. As I now look up ‘Mitchi’ on the BCR, what can I say except WOW! With a parentage like that the progeny has to be good. Neo.’Pink Sensation’ for colour and ‘Royal Cordovan’ with its great shape, compact form and nice wide leaves. How could you not win with that combination?

On the topic of judges, let me add that we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that like all people, there are good judges as well as bad ones. I’ve never been able to work out why the bad ones get all the publicity and the good ones rarely get mentioned though. I remember a few years back we had the same judge for two years in a row, he was a Sydney judge which after judging went with the committee for the traditional “cuppa”. After the “cuppa” it was announced he was available to answer any questions the competitors might have. That man spent an hour explaining things like, “Why this plant won over that one when they both looked the same”. It was all extremely valuable information for anyone who intended showing in the future. Sadly, he was the partner of the judge mentioned in my response to Teresa and when she stopped judging so did he; I guess “she wore the pants” in that relationship.

On to your pic’s now and you have great colour in the ‘Amazing Grace’ and ‘Red River’. That ‘Amazing Grace’ is the light coloured form which sometimes has (Light form) added to the name. There is also a “dark form” and it is a bit unstable also and I’ve had it revert from the dark form back to the light form and back to the dark form again; I guess it just can’t decide what it wants to be.

I love your little seedlings, all standing up like “little soldiers”, did you cross your Mister Odean with something else or were the flowers pollinated by nature? Whatever was done, I have found that Mister Odean as a parent is producing some unexpected colours, so something to look forward to down the track.

Here I go again; and please don’t think I’m “having a go at you” but I’m just trying to rectify some possible errors, and this is what forum discussion is about. Firstly, in your Pic. named Neo. 'Olsens’ (Large Form), I can’t find any plant with that name anywhere. However there is a Neo species called Neo. olens. Next I noticed your plant has a remarkable likeness to a plant I have called Neo. ‘Kiko’, but that’s not all; Neo. ‘Kiko’ = Neo. correia-araujoi x Neo. olens.

Now it is possible your plant which was bred by Lisa Vinzant of Hawaii, came into Australia before it was registered, and was still carrying the formula name of Neo. correia-araujoi x Neo. olens (This has happened with many other plants in the past).

It is also possible (as has happened many times before) that the first half of the name has been lost over time, (either faded or name tag broken off) and just left the name olens? The (Large Form) could have been added by anyone simply because this plant is larger than the Neo olens species ….. Just something to think about.

The other thing you can try is increasing the light as much as possible without burning the plant and if it is Neo.’Kiko’ the colour will intensify much more with the green becoming almost yellow. I have grown it in both low and high light and was amazed at the difference.

That’s it for today and Pic.1 is the dark form of Neo.’Amazing Grace’ (Just a pup) Pic.2 show the beautiful colour of Ae. ‘Blue Cone’ (A c.v. of Ae cylindrata) Pic.3 is Neo. ‘Burnsie’s Spiral’, Pic. 4 is Tillandsia bergeri and Pic.5 is Neo.’Heart Music x concentrica.

All the best, Nev.