Australian and New Zealand Gardening: BROMELIADS GOING INTO WINTER 2015, 1 by splinter1804

splinter1804 wrote:
Hi Teresa – It looks like it’s back to just you and me again.

I never had much connection with my cousins as they were all much older than me, so all of my childhood was spent playing with the local kids in the little village where we lived. We spent endless days rabbiting, fishing, bird nesting, swimming and just playing cowboys and Indians. There was only a couple of rules we had to follow, be home by meal time or you missed out and always tell Mum where we were going. It was a great environment to grow up in and sadly one that isn’t available to many kids today.

A little bit of history about Neo. ‘A Nice Try’, this was one of a group of seedlings from a cross of Neo. ‘Rosea Striata’ x Self and was one of several seedlings I gave to friends. My friend hasn’t registered the name as yet but says he will when he gets around to it.

I’m posting five pic’s of some of the other plants in the grex to just show the variation you can get when you self-pollinate a plant.

I bought Neo. ‘All Expectations’ a few years ago because I saw it in exactly the same way that you describe it. Some years the red colouring will extend further along the leaf if it’s grown in bright light and if grown in low light the red is just confined to the centre which once again shows the important part good light plays in achieving good colour.

Neo.’Aleena’ was a little miniature I once picked up at the local markets at just 50c. for a pot full. It’s a very strong grower and very dependent on good light to get colour like that shown in the picture. The original plant I bought had been grown in the shade and was just green with a bit of slight spotting on the “skinny “leaves. I just got it out of curiosity to see how it would respond to being grown in good light and was quite surprised at the outcome. It’s also an excellent candidate for basket culture or mounting on tree fern or a suitable tree.

That’s it for today, and as I said above the pictures are of plants all from the same grex as the Neo.’A Nice Try’ I posted yesterday.

All the best, Nev.