Australian and New Zealand Gardening: Bromeliads for novices and addicts September 2013, 4 by splinter1804

splinter1804 wrote:
Hi everyone – Back to the start of another week. I hope everyone had a nice weekend and the Fathers among us had a enjoyable Father's Day. We went for a family lunch over to my daughter and son-in-laws place where I was entertained by the antics of my youngest grandson. Later in the afternoon my eldest son, daughter-in-law and the other two grandsons came for a visit. All up I finished with a nice little “stash” of Bunnings Vouchers which no doubt I'll have no trouble spending.

Hi to anyone on the sick list or anyone who hasn't posted for a while, we are still thinking of you so how about dropping us a line or two to say hello.

Jean – These comments are from the last lot of your pic's in the previous August post. I think your little NOID in Pic.13 is Neo. pauciflora; and just looking at the leaves and the stolon on the plant in Pic.14 makes me think it too could be a Neo.pauciflora. The plant in your last picture I think is a species Vriesea called flammea (see the FCBS Photo Index under species) Not to be confused with a Vriesea a hybrid of the same name.

Sue – Thanks Sue for transferring my post to the correct thread, I should have read your instructions more carefully. I opened up the other thread this morning and nothing new? What's going on I wondered and then I realised that it wasn't intended to also be our Sept thread; should have read it properly first (silly old bugger).

Anyway I've found my way here now so time to get down to business. Sue I think your suspicions about your new plant being a hybrid may be correct as it looks very much like one I have which I won in a society raffle and was originally part of a small group of Ae. Caudata x Recurvata seedlings which originated from the Wollongong Botanical Gardens, (See Pic.1)

Trish – It seems like we all attract Huntsman Spiders. I can just imagine the puzzled look on your face as you looked at all the baby spiders and then suddenly wondered where the Mum was.

What is the light green Neo. in the bottom centre of Pic.2. I notice it has some faint lineation in the leaves like a radial red; does the centre colour up as well?

Ian – I'm interested in reading what you say about Neo.'Magnificent Red'; I have several of these and they all colour up beautifully. One little quirk I have found that it does have though, and that is, it likes to be allowed to clump up a bit and it likes it even better when it's just grown in the garden and left alone. I have found it does best for me under 75% green shade cloth and much nicer than it does beneath the 75% beige; I would have thought it would have been the other way around, but no; so I guess it's a case of “horses for courses”.

As for you saying you too have to sort out your plants, well I thought I had all my Neo's sorted and catalogued but with moving plants around for the show and the plants sales I seem to be almost back to where I'll have to start all over again......bugger!

Shirley – I've found Ae. 'Aztec Gold' to be quite variable depending on the degree of light it's grown under, more so than many other plants. The one in your third pic is identical to the colours we get in them down here, but then we don't have the intensity of the Queensland sun; maybe that's the difference or maybe the one in your first pic is either a more superior clone or even a sport itself; this could explain the different colour and I guess it is possible as we mustn't forget that 'Aztec Gold originated as a sport itself. To read the interesting story of how John Catlin developed it, go to: http://fcbs.org/articles/a_Aztec_Gold.htm

That's a great example of Ae.'Purple Heart' and your Neo.'Down's Autumn' is certainly a beautiful plant, but one I haven't seen around down here unfortunately.

Cody – Come on; be happy! Life's to short to be unhappy, remember what I said about thinking of all the good things in your life and then compare them with other people who have nothing. To start with you and Alex both have your good health so that's gotta be a big plus. Remember today will never come again so make the most of it while you can; lets see you both give a big smile to us all.

Ian - That's a great $30 worth of brom's you got from “Woolies”. The Woolies in our area don't sell plants any more and K-Mart only sells them in a couple of their stores and usually only ferns and no brom's any more either. Maybe it's something to do with freight costs as most of the big wholesale brom nurseries are up in Northern N.S.W. and Queensland.

I'll finish today with a few random pic's; first of all Pic.1, Ae. Caudata x Recurvata to compare with Sue's suspected Recurvata hybrid, Pic.2 “I'M A FATHER AGAIN!” - The baby Honey Eater has hatched out, the mother only laid one egg this year as opposed to two eggs in previous years. Pic 3 is a garden grown plant of Ae 'Pie' just starting to flower. Pic. 4 shows a beautiful but unfortunately worthless albino pup on a Neo Meyendorffii plant.(For those who don't know, shortly after that pup is removed from the Mother plant it will start to die [even with a healthy root system of its own]. The reason being is that it has no chlorophyll with which to manufacture food) Pic.5 is another of my hybrids just starting to colour Neo.'Mon Petite' x 'Tangerine'.

All the best, Nev.