Bromeliads

The warm, wet weather we've been having has made the Bromeliads spring into action. I was delighted this morning to discover my Bilbergia nutans (gifts from two GC members about 18 months ago) opening it's first bloom (with three more visible) ...







I certainly don't remember them being this colourful last year but I only had two blooms.



Others progressing well in the right hand urn are (left to right) unidentified but will have a pink feathery plume broad green leaves red underneath, Tillandsia cyanea 'Anita' which is pink and purple and again, unidentified but with yellow buds thin darker green leaves with purple underneath. I can't wait to get them identified.

The urn on the left has Tillandsia ionantha (the Sky Plant) which will have bright blue and yellow flowers. My friend gave me this one fairly recently so I haven't seen it bloom yet.

My Guzmania still has it's flower stalk from last year and my other unidenfitied one has about a half a dozen new offshoots.

 

LoL for somebody I like so much you can be very annoying. I've spent the last 3 days preventing my B. nutans dying of cold. And that's in the g.house. Remember 2 things 1) You can go off people you know and 2) Nobody likes a smart ass. :D

 

I've been told that more than once, believe me, John. :D

I've got lots of offshoots on all of them ... so, if all else fails, call me.

1) Yes, I know.
2) Yes, I know.

Is there something new you'd like to tell me?

 

Yes, it`s not raining here. :D

 

Lucky for you or you'd be Dancing on Ice. :D :D

Oh, but David, I adore the rain ... and so do my plants ... these beauties all live outside year round under one of the Jacarandas, filtered sunshine only, they are actually North facing.

 

A challenge LOL, come back home and say you enjoy the rain.... I think not. :D

 

:D David. Okay, so you just want to see me. :rolleyes: I said I adore the rain ... perhaps I failed to put the word "here" in ... cough, cough!

A question I meant to ask for those of you in the know ... is it okay for me to have three varieties of these in one pot ... will they hybridise or is there no difference than them being in pots next to each other? Perhaps a stupid question but I'm new to these chappies in the last 18 months and, I think, doing very well with them in "not their natural habitat". :confused:

 

LOL, I would leave them alone and hope that they do cross pollinate. Imagine the possible colour variations, I`ll take some seed please. :D

 

Great stuff LoL no problem keeping them all in one pot, a snowball in hell chance of them cross pollinating in fact the window of pollination for each species is very small(hours) and is usually done by hand, Iwould love you to prove me wrong and like David would like some seeds

 

So I hope you won't resent me for mentioning that the big clumps of nutans planted along the top of my garden wall are budding nicely with fat pink spikes just peaking out :D

Don't hate me, but Bilbergias brachysiphon and x Windii are doing much the same, but in pots out on the patio, while baskets of B. saundersii are swinging about in the wind.

I'll leave now before

 

DavePUKWhy has everybody joined this conspiracy to make me mildly annoyed (i.e. furious).

 

Hello DaveP, nice to see you again. Mine are doing so well because I had a good tutor and good stock to begin with ... thanks to DaveP who got me started on these incredible plants.

 

I am still waiting for my B. Windii to show a bud, maybe later in the year, it has 4 offshoots already. I am trying to get a Bilbergia Pyramidalis Striata ofshoot to root because when that flowers it will be worth well the wait.