Bromeliads for novices and addicts, Jan-Feb 2011

Hi Wendy, sorry to hear your dad is unwell. I hope he comes good. 91 is a ripe old age! Your Neo looks like N. pendula x eleutheropetala, A.K.A 'Pink Spider' I've been growing one in bright light, and its really tubby, a bit like an Aechmea recurvata. I'm going to try another one in shade to get the long leaves, which I guess is where the 'spider' name comes into it.
I've been working on leisas memory garden for most of the day, and I am shattered. I now have heaps of my old ordinary broms to find spots for, as I am revamping an existing garden, instead of making a whole new one. I'll take some pickies tomorrow, as i think it looks awesome.
Sue

It's a beautiful little plant.

That it is. Wendy, I hope your Dad pulls through. I'm sure he's in good hands.

A few weeks back when Jean mentioned she'd removed some rooted pups from her Alcantarea I felt inspired so went out and gingerly levered off the lowest pup on mine, given that I knew there were no roots on the others. No roots, and it barely looked like it had a base plate, so I was kicking myself for being so impatient. I tucked him into the base of the leaf and figured he'd either survive or wouldn't. I was thrilled yesterday to discover a couple of roots had formed. Provided the water is kept up to it there is it likely to be as happy there for a bit as in a pot?

Pam

Cograts on being game to take the pups off, Pam.
I have 3 out there now. One is in the mix next to mum and the others are tucked into the leaves and have little roots. Looking good. There are still a few left on mum but too small to move yet.
I have lots of pups coming on other broms , so am going to have fum when they are all big enough to remove.
Jean

Wendy, sending prayers for your father. Thank you for letting me know about the roots (or lack of) for pups. I too am going to have fun with all the pups coming on at the moment. None are big enough to move yet though.

There is supposed to be a brom sale at Victoria Point this weekend. Wondering if anyone we know is involved? We are heading out later, but not sure we'll go down that way.

Have a pleasant weekend, everyone.
Karen

Um, went to the brom sale. Got 3 beauties.
Karen

This one is Vriesea Bianca.

Neoregelia Kautskyi. The gold is the display plant. I got a pup which is mostly just green yet. Both are pictured.
Karen



This message was edited Feb 13, 2011 12:04 AM

And this one is Alcantarea Extensa, showing the mother (display only) and pup. The mother is quite stunning, and the pic doesn't do it justice.
Karen

Wendy, I was amazed when we stopped at a small market at Redlands, and met your fish net man! They are a nice couple. I got some, of course. These already had Tillandsias in them, and I got a blank one too.

Karen

thanks everyone for your best wishes for my dad. Unfortunately at his age they are hesitant to go for invasive options to fix his heart so it is just a matter of time. It forgets to beat at normal speed when he sleeps. I guess that is the best way to go - in your sleep.

Karen you had a big day getting all those things. Bianca is lovely isn't it? Kautskyi goes yellow/red when grown in the sun. In the shade it stays more green with deep red markings. The photo is one of ours which is an F2 version. It is a perfect shape. We have now collected seed from it to try to improve it again.

Glad you got some more balls. I still have a box full of ones I bought but haven't filled yet. I am still working on one at the moment. Every now and then I clip another couple on it. I sold a couple with pups on last time we had a sale. They look like they might be popular when full of plants. Some of the ones we did a while ago are now so full you can hardly see the balls for plants.
Wendy

Wendy, your Kautskyi is gorgeous! A real prize. I keep saying I don't need anymore, but somehow I'm not listening. I am looking forward to seeing the net balls filled out.

Karen

Karen, you really did have a good day out, and picked up some lovelies as well, and all before lunch - well done! :)

he he, no Karen, you are NOT addicted! he he. Nice kautskyi Wendy. I've got one grown hard, (no fertiliser) and in good light and it is not alot bigger than a mini and never flowered....yet. I also grew a Neo. 'Jewellery Shop' the same way and it still looks gorgeous, while another younger one I grew with fertiliser has flowered and produced pups. I plan to grow half the pups hard as I reckon they are awesome.
I spent sunday pottering with leisas plants too, and got quite a bit acheived, but didn't get a photo of it where i'm up to, but did take one in the morning before I got started. Its looking good, despite the evr present mess from the gum trees. I have a plan in mind to string out shade cloth that will catch the leaves and branches, and hopefully they'll all slide off onto the grass, where I can mow them or rake them. Takes a bit of working out though, and I may have to put in some posts to connect the shade cloth to, because the trees aren't quite in the right spot.
ok, photo time. This is the only one, as when i tried to take pics this morning, they were blurry because of the low light and rain. I will try again tomorrow though. I've relocated the A. gamosepala and Billbergias from around the bandicoot log, and also I repotted the young A. recurvatas and variety benrathiis which are now down in the new Aechmea garden, which is ALMOST finished. I realised over the weekend, that almost everywhere you look there is a bromeliad or two...or three....or four! he he. I'm out of control!
Sue

This message was edited Feb 14, 2011 8:02 PM

heres my kautskyi in December 2010

And Neo. 'Jewellery Shop' in Dec 2010

Love the colors. magnificent..

OH, I want, I want.........hold on, I've already got those! Will they ever look like yours, Sue? And no, I'm really not addicted. I'm not! I can say 'No' anytime. Mostly. Well, maybe sometimes. Really.

Karen

Yeah! Right! None of us are addicted we just WANT them all. Isn't it lovely??

he he, Karen, I said about 2-3 months ago that you were addicted, but you denied, denied, denied! Your kautskyi and Jewellery shop can be coloured up by planting in an orchid type mix with no fertiliser, then placing in as much sun as you can without direct midday sun, so somewhere that would get sun till 11am and from 2-3pm onwards. Winter sun is the best for colouring them up as its not so hot, so have a go with them this winter and show us them next spring/summer. Just move them into sun slowly over a week if you currently have them in shade. Check for signs of burning in the early stages.
Charleen, how are you? Is it cold there? We're almost ready to come to an end of our lovely summer. Its been nice and warm, but an awful lot of rain this year. Still, since I have a tropical garden, it has benefited me.
Sue
A bit more of "Leisas Way'

Sue, the last couple of days has been wonderful, Sun shinning and temps in 60's, I love it. Believe Spring may be on it's way. Poor folks up north still have lots of snow yet tho.
Loved the picture of "Leisas Way" Beautiful. Got to go take a walk to see what is finally poking it's little head up to see if spring is here.

Sue, I think Leisa's Way has a rat living in the hollow log. It looks lovely now, and can only get better with time. I will keep them out in the sun and watch them colour up. I wish I had a large area for alcantareas as I am so enthralled by them.

Charleen, glad you are seeing sun shine. There has been more rain predicted here, and they are talking about releasing a year's supply of drinking water from the dam. That is a huge step to take and I hope the weather man is right about the rains.

Karen

Sue I love the colour in your jewellery shop. I have one that has been grown at the top of a totem close t the shadecloth and I thought the lovely golden yellow wit deep red markings was lovely but I didn't get any of your pink tones. My kautskyi was also grown at the top of a totem hence the lovely colours. We usually grow kautskyii our in some sunshine on the totems and get some lovely colours but they seem to be more elongated leaves. I love the perfect shape of the one I posted.

Karen, your net ball with the tills on....... is that hayley's comet or pehaps neglecta???? If it is hayley's comet it will be from my tree. We gave Brian a heap of it to use on his balls. I didn't realise he was selling them with tills on them. I am getting a lift with Brian tomorrow night to the Brom Society meeting. I haven't been to one before. Perhaps I should take some money with me incase I see a brom I can buy at their sales table???? Don't know where we can put it. We have no room.

Jen asked me to go on a brom trip with her to Paterson's at Gympie next week. At first I said no because we are trying to get ready fo our open day. However we can't take any more pups off because we have no room to put them anywhere. We don't want to be so overcrowded for our open day that the yard looks messy. So no more pupping until after we clear some broms and make space. Soooooo. I guess I do have time for one day of brom shopping Jen. Tell me when and I will be ready.

We have worked out a perfect plan. We took a heap of broms up to our son in Hervey Bay. He is on acreage and plants them in the gardens and grows them up hard for us. We go up there regularly and buy a car load of big pups/broms to bring back to sell. Perfect for both him and us. We had so many in my brothers ute last weekend I had our bags under my legs coming home. The size and colour on them was so lovely ..... grown hard in the sun/shade between his banana trees.

Till stricta is flowering on the trees at the moment. I hope it is still flowering in 2 weeks. It looks so lovely at the moment.

That is beautiful.

Hi Charleen.
Wendy, Brian didn't say what the tills were. I think there are 3 different ones. I also think he may have been using those as a display as he had heaps of the blank ones for sale. I just got very lucky, and some have buds too. Was amazing that we met like that, as I had no idea there were even any markets on there. He did mention driving you to the brom soc.

I hope John is improving. This being sick all the time is not right. I do empathize.

Hi all brom lovers. We've been treated to some real beauties lately.

Karen

I went to the Brom Society Mtg last night and I was given strict instructions that we had no room for any more broms so not to buy anything but I couldn't resist a couple of vriseas (& tils but I snuck them onto my wall an he didn't see them). This one is Vr squiggles x angela.

and this one is Vr platynema 'flava'. The yellow colouring and the deep red fingernails are stunning.

Wendy

Wendy, those are beautiful. I so love the vrieseas, and it seems more new hybrids are appearing. Hard to go to a brom sale and not have something catch your eye.

Karen

ohh! thats what the flowers going to look like....

that is gorgeous!! the light green against the dark Mama....

Wendy, just ignore the instructions not to get any more broms. If he's anything like my hubby he knows full well that you WILL get something, but feels he needs to make the token protestation, just to support the 'team'. hehehe.

thanks Pam. He thinks the foliar vriseas are his and I get the flowering ones so I knew that buying him a couple of foliar vriseas would be excused. Luckily I hung the tillandsias up as soon as I got home so he never even new. I also bought a orthophytum bright lights. Unfortunately I can't find a photo on FCBS or Broms in Aust. I will just have to wait until mine flowers to show you all how the bright green flower looks against the black plant. If anyone located a photo of these plants in flower please post it so we can all see.

Less than 2 weeks now till our open day. How time is flying by. Nearly end of summer already.
Wendy

Jen and I are off to Gympie this week to relieve Margaret Patterson of some of her new hybrids. Can't wait to see what she has available again. Apparently some of their plants floated out away in the Gympie floods in January.

As promised this is a photo of the nappy cakes I made for the babyshower for my new grandaughter this weekend. The front green one was made with 3yo Emily. She chose decorations from her toybox and helped me roll nappies and put rubber bands round them. She was so proud to take it home to show daddy. I was proud of my two as well.

Wendy

Wendy, those nappy cakes are brilliant. What a wonderful gift idea.

We are heading north this weekend also, though not as far as you. Were supposed to go this past weekend but I was way to sick with chest cold. It will be gone this weekend!!!

Karen

You did great! They are so cute...

Change of plan. Gympie trip is off. Our host is unwell and will be off her feet for at least 2 weeks so we'll have to see how we go after Jen gets back from her trip south in about 3 weeks.

I just have to share this. I went along with Jess for her baby scan this week. Baby objected to the guy pushing his scanner over her face so she put her hand up in front of her face with a clenched fist. The guy was just trying to get a profile picture to print out for Jess to keep. We got it with a perfect side profile showing eyes, nose and perfect bowed lips. All of a sudden baby's bottom lip jutted way out and her hand raised up above her head. He just had to print another shot. We now have a photo of her first tantrum wih full lip pout and all.

Wendy

Aren't they (the scans) awesome these days Wendy? Compared to what they were when I was having my babies around 25 years ago they've just come along so far. Back then they'd have just about have to had a degree just to make out what the cloudy images even were. Now they're just so intricate and detailed. I find it absolutely amazing that they can actually go into each individual ventricle of the heart and see it all so clearly.

Have a great day all.

Pam

Wendy, wow, talk about pics to treasure. Imagine that being the first "This is your life" - at baby's 21st!

We are supposed to be driving up on Sunday (not sure where, near Montville maybe). I hear its going to be stinking hot on Sunday. Hope I am really back on my feet again. The car isn't air conditioned.

These tills, are the new ones too young to separate? I would like to cover the empty one of the net balls with these. It seems to be a strong grower and reproducer. But I'd hate to do the wrong thing and kill it. I've lost the name tags off my tills, so don't know what any of them are except one.

Karen

Karen, I think your till might be neglecta buy you may have to wait for the flowers to be sure. They look big enough to divide up. I look forward to a pic of the ball when you have finished.

There has been some discussion recently about Billbergia tim plowman so I thought I would share some advice I was given by Genny Catlan recently. Never take the first pup off a tim plowman. If you do mum will sulk for 1 or 2 years. She advised that you wait for at least 3 if not 4 plants before you take the youngest one. A few years ago we bought a pot with 2 tubes of TP. About a year ago our TP had pup which we took off for Jen (brombirdie Jen). Our pot of TP today is still just the same 2 tubes. Yesterday I saw Jen's pot of TP (the one she got from us remember). Believe it or not it now has about 5 tubes. I can confirm our TP has been sulking for over a year now. Last week it flowered so maybe the sulks are over now. Anyway Genny Catlan is bringing me up a couple more next weekend when she comes up for our open garden. I will not be taking any pups off these new ones until the pot is full.
Can anyone identify or suggest a possible ID for this guz. It is flowering at present but the lady who gave me the pup didn't know the name. It is a lovely white with deep purple tips.

Wendy

Hello again everyone. My broms are going very well here even though they never saw much warm weather. There are quite a few pups coming and I am so pleased that some of my tillandsias are flowering. I thought I may have to wait years but the plants I bought from Exotic Air Plants are just great. Here is the flower just starting to open on Til. harrisii.

This is Til. magnusiana