Australian and New Zealand Gardening: bromeliads for novices and addicts, sep, 2012, 5 by splinter1804

splinter1804 wrote:
Hi everyone,

Isn’t it great to see so many of our members writing and posting pictures; it’s really is getting to be an most interesting read each morning and much better than it was a while ago when there was only the usual two or three writing.

I’ve just visited an international brom forum of which I am a member and in it they have a section called “Where do you live?” and it’s very interesting to see all of the different countries where bromeliads are grown by hobbyists.

Although ours is mainly an Australian site, I thought it would be interesting to see what parts of Australia our members come from as it helps us understand better what type of growing conditions prevail and if plants from their areas would grow under our conditions or would they struggle a bit?

I’ll start the ball rolling by saying I come from the South Coast of N.S.W. at a little place called Shellharbour Village. It’s a couple of hours south of Sydney and I live just one street back from the ocean so I experience what you might call a maritime climate with often afternoon north easterly sea breezes.

What a fantastic lot of information and pictures have been posted since I last wrote and as I’m short of time unfortunately I can only make a few comments so for anyone who is left out let me apologise now.

Jen – Great to see you posting again. I’d love to see some pic’s of the Ursulaea macvaughii 's. (For anyone who doesn’t know what we are talking about, I grew these from seed and they just got to a certain stage when it became obvious they didn’t like our cooler climate so I gave them to Jen to weave her magic over and it sounds like they are out of control! ) You certainly have some beautiful foliage Vrieseas, but you threw me a bit with the name of the last one, as ‘Pink Sensation’ is a registered name of a Neo. and is not on the register as a name for a Vriesea; ‘Plantation Pride’ is registered but is a plain leaved Vriesea with a yellow flower (see pic from the BCR). Can you tell us a bit about the history and where it came from or who bred it if you know?

Sue - I eagerly await the pic’s of the final garden you have been working on so hard recently and I must agree with you about the owners of other gardens without brom’s, they do need to be educated, and what's this about Tash's T Shirt? Come on Tash show us all!

Karen – What you say about chronic illnesses is very true “there are good days and bad ones”, the trick is to make the most of the good ones by spending time out in the garden, as for the bad ones, do something interesting to take your mind of bad ones such as wading through the various brom sites on the web, it’s amazing how much new knowledge is to be found. Incidentally is that third pic Aechmea ‘Bert’? It looks very much like it.

Ian – Nice Crypts; unfortunately I’m a bit like Sue and they don’t seem to like me or my growing conditions and I don’t do well with them although I’d dearly love to be able to grow them, especially ones like your NOID in pic three, I think it’s a wonderful looking plant.

Wendy – You have a great collection of Crypts as well and just as a matter of interest, Crypt ‘It’ has a relative called Crypt ‘Ti’ which has a reverse of the foliage colour. However out of your little lot, ‘Marion Oppenheimer’ does it for me, and although I say I don’t do well with them, the little plant you sent me is still hanging on so maybe with some warmer weather it will “take off”. That’s a great set up you have for the seedlings now and I expect great things from you and Johnny. I also like your concentrica seedlings, concentrica is one of my favourite brom’s and a proven wonderful breeder.

Shirley – There’s nothing like a nice feed of good old “fish and chips” by the water. I think it was Jen who first told me about the VOMIT club and I seem to remember John Catlan’s name being mentioned so maybe it was one of his terms. I agree with you that nature is wonderful, and only yesterday I heard a commotion in the shade house and when I looked I saw the mother Honey Eater getting the first baby out of the nest to see the big wide world, I have attached an (not very good) picture.

Trish – You have a great looking batch of very well gown plants there. I see Sue has set you straight on the spelling of luedemanniana, quite a mouthful isn’t it? Actually you don’t really need to write all of that on a (very long) name tag if you don’t want to as Ae. ‘Rodco’ (inverta) is sufficient. The name lueddemanniana just tells us that is where the plant originated from. It is a beautiful plant and I was fortunate enough to get one from Sue a while back, but I can’t grow it as good as you can.

That’s it for now Pic 1 and 2 are of one of my new babies (first day out of the nest) Pic 3, Neo Meyendorffii variegata (Red Form) 4 is Neo Grace U.S.A. and 5 is Neo. Ice White River

All the best, Nev.