It's time to read and vote for your favorite article in the 2013 Write-Off Contest! The four finalist's articles are featured in the May 13 newsletter and can be found through this link. Hurry! Voting ends May 18.
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splinter1804 wrote: Hi everyone – Well we had a nice fine (although cool) day yesterday not at all like we usually get at this time of the year. Maybe the fact that the world didn't end has thrown all of the seasons out of “whack”.
Podster – Great to hear from you again, how's thing going over in that part of the world? A bit cooler than here I expect. I'm pleased you found the little article interesting, I re-hash that one every few years in our brom. society news letter as we have new members joining all of the time and although it's all “old news” to most of us, we should never forget there are always new growers just starting out who find these little snippets of info helpful to them. I have never professed to have any literary talent and just try to pass on these little bits of info in simple language without all the “technical stuff” that new growers sometimes find a bit of a “turn off”.
I like the picture of your little xCryptbergia 'Red Burst' and I seem to remember it has a green flower with unusual blue margins on the petals. Could you please post another pic when the flowers open?
Your Aechmea Black chantinii & Aechmea recurvata var. benrathii in the same pot could produce some interesting seed if they both flower at the same time and either you, birds or ants decide to pollinate them. Anyway, don't make this visit a “one off”, drop in a bit more often than you have been as its always nice to hear from you.
Jen - Good to hear you got some rain also; it seems like Santa threw a bit around as he made his rounds.
This is the first flowering of Neo 'Fairy Dust' and Neo 'Burgundy Moss', so hopefully some pups won't be too far away, so I'll put your name on the labels for one of each, and when I get some spare I'll let you know, if you're still interested, well and good and if not, it doesn't matter as I won't have any trouble getting rid of them as they are pretty new down here.
It seems you are getting a pretty “classy” collection of patterned leaf Vrieseas together; do I detect a bit of Vriesea “hybridising” in the not too distant future? I liked the range of colours in them all and it's interesting how the coloured leaf tips of Vr. Platynema variegata have been passed on to it's babies. I think Pic.1 gets my vote for colour though and Pic.2 definitely gets my vote for shape. What do you think about Vr. Milky Way F2 x (Vr. Ubeaut x Illusion)?They could produce some interesting seedlings.
Shirley – Yes I'll put you down for one of each of those pups although you may have a bit of a wait as I always keep a spare fr myself and then Jen has already ordered one of each as well. As for Camelot, well I find it's one of those brom's that can change a little from year to year depending on where it is grown. I have two plants which originally came from the same mother plant and they are totally different.
What sort of snake is that on your fly screen? It seems to have a python shaped head, although I'm certainly no snake expert; however I hope it's non-venomous.
Wendy – I hope you have better luck with your Lueddemanniana seedlings than I did a few years back. I planted some seed from Lueddemannina c.v. Mend Inverta and being just new to all this, I thought I would grow some more of the same. Well I've never seen seed grow so quickly and soon I had them in three inch pots and six months later, into four inch pots. It was the year we had the bad “New Years Day Heatwave” down here and the garden was “cooked” and I was looking over the brom's in the shade houses to see if there was any damage. It was then I saw a touch of bright red on one of the leaves of these seedlings. As I watched them all closely over the next few days I found about six or more plants with the centre leaves starting to colour a nice bright red. By this time I had read up on the Lueddemanniana c.v's and was quite convinced I had bred a few nice seedlings similar to Ae. 'Rodco'. Gradually the leaves got brighter and brighter and I felt prouder and prouder and then the bomb dropped! I was wiping a cobweb off one of these leaves in preparation to take some pic's and the centre of the plant pulled out. The unmistakable stink that came from that plant could only mean one thing, ROT. I went through all of these red leaved plants and everyone was rotting. I was one very disappointed brom grower I can tell you. After the initial shock I realised what had happened was that these plants were all hanging on a sheet of wire mesh and the ones with red leaves were the highest. It seems the water in the centre had got so hot due to the heatwave that they had simply “cooked”!
That's it for today and the pic's today are Pic.1 is 3” pot size Ae. Lueddemanniana seedlings; Pic's 2 and 3 show the brilliant red coloured leaves which unfortunately were an indication of rot.
In a previous post you mentioned some tiny seedlings in which you thought you could see some variegation; Pic's 4 and 5 show the Neo Painted Lady (sport) which was used as a parent and which has transmitted variegation in past crosses.
