Australian and New Zealand Gardening: Bromeliads for Novices and Addicts - September 2014, 1 by splinter1804

splinter1804 wrote:
Hi everyone – Quite a warm one down here yesterday but good weather for the Rugby League grand final which was played last night. Pleased to announce my team (South Sydney) won even though there’s not a brom grower among any of the players.

I just want to “back track” on a couple of comments and pic’s from recent posts, firstly Brian’s post on Oct 4th where he said, “The Aechmea you showed of Dick Jamieson's has a weird looking flower.” The flowers are pretty much the same as for all Ae. weilbachii pendula plants, however I presume you are referring to the multiple inflorescences, or “flower spikes as old orchid growers like me still tend to call them”.

Usually, Ae. weilbachii plants will just produce one inflorescence to each single plant; in this particular plant however it produced multiple inflorescences (5) which is very unusual, not only that, but some of these inflorescences were branched as well and that’s not something that usually happens. Dick said he had grown Ae. weilbachii for many years and only on a couple of previous occasions had he seen two inflorescences from a single plant and never multiple inflorescences and branched like these.

Also, I ran out of time before I could comment on Shirley’s pictures on the same day. Firstly let me say I don’t know any of these plants but when I first looked at Neo.’ Torch Dancer’, I immediately thought of Neo.‘Lambert’s Pride’ as it’s very similar only the colours are brighter.

It came as no surprise then when I looked it up on the BCR and saw that it was a Sharon Petersen crossing of Neo.'Hal Ellis' x 'Lambert's Pride'. It seems there are more and more crosses popping up with Lambert’s Pride as one of the parents. In fact I even made one or two crosses with it myself and a crossing with Neo.'Thunderbird' was one of them (See Pic 1) and although not as good as ‘Torch Dancer’, still quite attractive colours.

In my view there are mainly four different styles of standard size Neo’s; ones which are grown for colour, ones which are grown for superior shape, ones which have unusual colour patterns and marking and ones which have a combination of good shape and colour.

Your group of pic’s depicts all four of these types; Neo.‘Torch Dancer’ in my opinion wins the colour race, while Neo.’Red Earth’, although not as colourful as ‘Torch Dancer’ is an example of good shape with its nice wide leaves. Neo. ‘Golden Goddess’ comes under the banner of unusual markings, and Neo. ‘Freddie’ is an example of good shape and colour combined. All in all a good selection of quality plants.

Looking at your second lot of pic’s, again you show great examples of these various styles; Neo.‘Spanish Sunrise’ and Neo.’Allure’ fit into the unusual colour pattern department, Neo.’Decora’ wins it for colour, Neo.’Gee Whiz’ easily gets the shape prize and I’d give the shape and colour vote to Neo.’ Sundays Sister’. Another great collection of quality plants.

Teresa – Like you, I too always had adverts on the left side of my page and I just ignored them as well. But after down-loading the programme Jean told us about I don’t even have them anymore.

I had no trouble locating the “preferences tab” as it’s on the same line as;
Hello, splinter1804! - D-Mail - My Info - Preferences - Logout.

I opened it to see what it was all about but didn’t change anything in case I mucked it all up again, so I’ll just hold that one in reserve for possible future problems.

As for your Tomatoes; like any other plants when transplanted or plants suffering from any sort of stress, hit them with some Seasol, a couple of doses a week apart. Mix at the rate for stressed plants and watch the recovery. I had climbing beans with burnt black leaves and almost dead on the trellis after a heatwave a few years back. After two doses of Seasol, one month later they were flowering again and went on to produce more beans. Actually, between you and me I’ve often been tempted to try a dose or two on myself. Ha! Ha!

I’ll finish with a mixture of pic’s today Pic.1 is the Neo.’Thunderbird’ x ‘Lambert’s Pride’ mentioned above, Pic.2 is Neo. nivea, Pic.3 is Ae.nudicaulis ‘Aqualis’, Pic.4 is Edmundoa lindenii variety rosea and Pic. 5 is not what you want to find when you lift the toilet seat.

All the best, Nev.