Australian and New Zealand Gardening: BROMELIADS IN SUMMER ..2014, 5 by splinter1804

splinter1804 wrote:
Hi everyone - Not much time to write this morning as any minute, the grandsons will be arriving for the day so I'll try and keep this short.

Teresa - Yes that seedling seems to be a similar colour to Apricot Nectar at this stage, but who knows how it will turn out once it's mature. A lot can happen between now and then so I'm not getting my hopes up as I've seen small seedlings showing a lot of promise in the past only to turn out to be dogs when mature. (Sorry Miss Sugar a slip of the tongue)

Colleen - Thanks for the info on your pup rooting technique using lawn clippings, it might be a way for me to buy some time with all the pups I have to take off.

I haven't seen a product around here called "Rapid Raiser" so I'll have to look that one up. There's just so many different types of pelletised fertilizers around now and to think it all started from "fowlsh" when they first made "Dynamic Lifter ".

It wouldn't be as simple as just parcelling the seedlings up, I'd need to put them in a container
as what you saw in the pic's was only a small part of them. I should have listened to experienced hybridisers when they told me to cull ruthlessly in the early stages, but how can you toss out nice healthy little plants? I've always found culling the hardest thing about raising seedlings and I still do, but I can now see why it's so necessary.

That plant in your pic's looks similar to some of the ones from an early cross I did of Neo. concentrica x ('Charm' x 'Cracker Jack')

That's it from me today, all the very best wishes to you all for Christmas and the New Year and I hope your "Santa Bags" get filled with nice brom's.

Today's pic's are a mixture; firstly, a beautiful new unnamed Vriesea hybrid shown recently on the internet and bred by one of our Australian hybridisers, but I don't know who. Pic.2 is also another pic which was recently posted on the internet and shows an interesting bi-generic hybrid called xNidumea 'Midnight', Pic.3 is another off the internet, an oldie but still a very attractive plant called Neo. 'Red Macaw'.

Pic.4, I may have posted this wonderful group of Vr. Phillipo-cobergii previously, but I didn't explain that they were growing in the front yard belonging to a friend of mine whose home backs onto the National Park; the day after he took this picture, they were completely destroyed by feral deer from the National Park. Finally Pic.5; how much whiter can they make these wonderful patterned leaved Vrieseas? I think this hybrid from Peter Coyle in N.Z. is the whitest I've seen yet.

All the best, Nev.