Australian and New Zealand Gardening: BROMELIADS FOR NOVICES & ADDICTS - NOVEMBER 2012, 1 by perke_patch

perke_patch wrote:
Hi everyone. missed you all last night but we had a storm so I had the computer and tv off and unplugged from the wall. of course the way Max loves a good storm and especially the thunder it has been impossible to make his sit down and stay calm and quiet. same again today. for once the weather bureau was right when they predicted a super cell forming. we've had several storms each day all weekend.

Sue we went to Ray's place yesterday but you wouldn't recognise his plants now. I remember what it looked like first time we went there. it was the colour that amazed us too. the last time we were there before yesterday was first time Ray had finished a bout of chemo and radiation and the plants had suffered a bit but he'd had a few friends there and they had started cleaning up for him. he had even started buying foliage vriseas on ebay. the sad part is the same plants looked terrible yesterday. we only went there to have a chat and check up on him and Johnny's sister was getting some plants to start off her collection. we must have spent too long chatting and had just gone downstairs with Ray to help Trish pick out some plants. We couldn't go too far from the house as there were so many spider webs crossing all the paths and weeds that were chest high to wade through. all the broms we could see were so full of dead leaves. we couldnt' help ourselves and did pluck off as many leaves as we could but Ray was tiring and becoming breathless so Trish grabbed what she wanted. We also had to pick up his tillandsai collection that we had commited to buy off him before this latest bout of chemo and radiation. he remembered that we wanted them so we had the cash to pay for them but nothing else. it was while I was plucking leaves that I saw a patch of colour right down the back corner on the ground and had to investigate. It took a lot of swiping away spider webs and pushing through weeds to discover the plant in pic 1 neo bob & grace (sport). dead mum in the middle had so much dead stuff surrounding them that it took a while to identify something special and I made sure there was another pot of them left for Ray. I thought the worst he could say was I couldn't have it but luckily he was generous and let me buy it for a ridiculous price. It was while I was rescuing bob & grace that the heavens opened up and Johnny said it was a very very bad storm approaching so we had to make a very quick dash home. It was still only 10 or 10.15ish so we hadn't had a very long visit. anyway I am still trying to clean up, separate and pot up all the potted tillandsias. a lot of lindenii pink, tricolour, cyanea, complanata, lieboniana, faciculata and a single flabellata.
Pic 2 is the FCBS version of bob & grace so mine seems to be the reverse of the patterning.
Bree I think your NOID in pic 4 could be tricolour perfecta as Ian posted or possibly piccolo. pic 3 is tricolor perfecta. pic 4 and 5 is picollo

Shirley sorry to hear about your modem problem. hope you are back on line asap.

Ian love you seedling area. I was glad to see that you have trays under your seedling trays. we've noticed that our seedlings have grown so much quicker since we started putting water into the trays they sit in so they can have as much as they want to take up through their mix. the aechmeas, alcants and billbergias in particular are really doubling in size. I been loathe to put the vriseas and neos into dishes with too much water.

well I can hear thunder again I think so might have to turn off again soon. might have an early night I think.
Night everyone.
Wendy