Australian and New Zealand Gardening: BROMELIADS GOING INTO WINTER 2015, 4 by splinter1804

splinter1804 wrote:
Hi everyone – Well the fine weather held for yesterday and I did end up getting some gardening done and I can now see a bit of progress in what I’m doing. Another six plants went into the green bin so a little bit more space was made.

Jean – Thanks so much for creating a new thread; I had noticed the other one was getting a bit long but didn’t say anything as I always seem to be the one giving someone else the work to do by making a new one.

You say your pic’s are oldies, but they are still interesting to look at and I for one don’t care if they are old or not.

I hope you have a nice day with your hospital group; you will be able to show them all around your new car and make them envious. I had an old brom mate once who said his two favourite smells were from new money and a new car, so inhale and enjoy the smell.

Teresa – It seem like Miss Sugar has Mummy and Daddy twisted around her little finger. The next thing you’ll be telling us is that Daddy took her for a helicopter or plane ride!

Trish – I’ve just turned 75 also so tell Mum I reckon 1940 was a pretty good vintage year for people.

Yes neighbours who don’t worry about weeds are a problem, I know as I have one on the north side of our place. I probably mentioned I’ve just been again trimming back Lantana which is sneaking over our side fence, but this time I painted the cut ends with Glyphosate in the hope it will travel to the roots and kill the plant. Has anyone tried this method before and does it work?

Two things to remember with hybridising Vrieseas, firstly you can store pollen in the fridge until a suitable Mother plant becomes available and secondly, they need to be pollinated at night (the experts say around 9.00pm is best) as in the wild they are pollinated by large moths and small bats.

You say you got a video of your snake exploits; can you email it to me and share the laugh?

Your Neo. ‘Cane Fire’ clearly demonstrates the advantage of leaving pups on the Mother plant longer than normal. I do the same now and although you may not get as many pups, you do get good ones; as they say “Quality not quantity”.

I can’t say anything about Bill. ‘Hallelujah’ that hasn’t already been said; a beautiful Bill. also a fantastic parent; and what about Neo. ‘Purple Glaze’? Another beautiful plant from that “Master of Variegates” Chester Skotak.

Your Vriesea ‘Haaheo’ bred from a crossing of 'Royal Hawaiian' x 'Pahoa Beauty' and made by David Shiigi, a well-known Vriesea breeder from Hawaii. When fully coloured it is a most unusual combination of colours often described as creamy/pink.

Your Tasman hybrid comes from a very popular N.Z. grex which produced 32 registered hybrids See: (http://registry.bsi.org/index.php?fields=Name&id=9169&search...) and is the effort of more than one breeder, judging by the BCR which shows the breeder as A. Maloy et al, Coyle, P
I’ll finish today with the history and some pic’s of a very strange Billbergia - I bought a plant of Billbergia 'Ralph Graham French' a few years ago and have found it to be the most unstable plant I have ever seen. No two pups it produced were ever the same and the plant in the pictures is one of the two most recent pups taken just before the original Mother plant died.

The pictures are of the same plant taken from different angles to show exactly what I mean. It has banding, stripes, variegations and plain colours and although it is an oddity, it has some sort of weird attraction as well.

I have a second plant which was a pup from the same Mother plant and that's doing the same thing. I've removed the plain yellow pups from the other plant in the hope it will produce a normal pup but as yet, no luck.

I had suspected the almost all yellow pups I removed would have died just like albinos do when removed from the Mother plant, but so far they haven't and it's been a month since their removal. We're going into winter here now and I wondered if that had anything to do with the fact that they haven't declined yet.

I only intended keeping these two plants to show people what an unstable plant can do, and as soon as my bench space gets tight again, they were going into the bin, but now I'm wondering if I should keep them to see what else they can turn out. What do you think?

A very confused Bill. ‘Ralph Graham French’

All the best, Nev.