beautiful Matt! Just loving how good your plants and gardens look. Thanks for showing us a bit of eye candy! Your Alc is a beauty, And an experience I have yet to have myself! The shelving is a great idea. Use what you can, I reckon
BA

Matt,

Your garden is looking good, some very nice broms out in flower.

It's good to see that you sorted out your PC problems.

Rick

Hi Matt,

That's a nice pic of the concentrica hybrid and I look forward to mine maturing.

Your garden looks great, but beware the brom's don't advance and eat up your house, as they do have a habit of expanding, but oh! what a great hobby.

It's great to see you have left room for your new shadehouse to expand (as it will), and it's also good to see re-cycling is still alive and well. You're lucky to have a store that gives away useful stuff like your benches, I wish we had store like that down here.

Thanks for sharing the pic's of your garden it's much appreciated and if I ever get mine tidy enough, I may also share some pic's.

All the best, Nev.

Hi Matt,

Great to see your garden and all those lovely plants - thanks for showing them. I'd just love to be able to grow a chantinii like that out in a shady part of my garden but they seem to need as much light as they can cope with to get through the winters down here. And that silvery Alc. coming into flower is a beauty.

You've motivated me to snap a few pics. This one looks west down the back yard taken an hour before midday today, with shade from the tall trees along the western fence just starting to move towards where I stood to take the photo. The roundish plot in the middle is my experiment with full sun broms and the dug-out outline above it is a graphic illustration of Nev's point about expansion - in a couple of weeks, no more grass in there!
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From another thread a while back I thought you might be interested in the full sun brom experiment, so here it is a bit closer up. It gets full sun from around 8.30am to midday, then dappled shade through the afternoon.
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There was no sign of burning on any of the plants through the winter, including a lot of days with very clear skies and quite intense sun, up until the first really clear day of spring to hit 30degC a couple of weeks ago, then the 'Bobby Dazzler' (big red one in the right hand corner) and the 'Red Macaw' (big yellow + red tips next to BD) picked up a few patches of lost colour. Both of them went through last summer without any damage, but they were just a bit further back down the yard in that bed right at the top of the pic, where they got shaded an hour earlier, so it looks like that final hour before midday is just a bit too much for them heading into summer. So, now I know where I can put them. All the other plants in the "full sun" bed are fine so far, although a couple have lost a little bit of colour. Now I just have to see how they go over the next few months.

This one is for Tamera and Jack - thanks for the beaut pieces of frangipani - they're in the big black pot just to the right of the cumquat tree that is sitting by itself in the lawn.
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In a couple of weeks the cumquat will be elsewhere and the frangipani will be in its place, so eventually (hopefully) it will give a bit of shade in summer and none in winter - just perfect! Thanks a lot for the plant and the idea.

Final pic - the first "new" brom to go out into the front yard now that the new fence is keeping the deer out - Aech. blanchetiana on guard next to the front gate.
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Broms - don't you just love'em! Cheers, Paul

Thankyou all for the comments.

Nev i'd love to see some pics regardless of how untidy it may be.

Paul great photos and thanks for sharing.
I bought the Chantinii Black in October at the Greenstock (formerly Stockade) open day. I'm sure that it will survive well thou in the Brisbane climate.
RE: your experiment if u look in my first photo there's a nice large Red Macaw to the left. If you look closely you'll see some burn marks which is shame as its always done very well in full sun but so far it hasn't liked the summer sun.

Hi everyone,

We've had some beautiful rain here over the last couple of days, and after being cooped up inside, I thought I'd take a look in the Neo. house during a break in the rain.

I thought I'd share with you what I saw.

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Finally, can anyone give me the correct name of this plant, I have it just named as a Canistrum, is this corect?

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All the best, Nev.

could be fosterianum or montanum or a hyb .

Wow Nev you've certainly got some gorgeous broms in your collection. The layout idea of suspending them from the roof is a great idea and makes full use of the space you have without them being cluttered in shelving. I also love the spanish moss. Thx for sharing :)

Lovely broms.
Nev mine is called triangulare.

Great show Matt, Paul and Nev! One might think we like these things called bromeliads...

Nev, maybe you could post another photo or two showing all of your Canistrum? I'm leaning towards fosterianum, as triangulare has more orange bracts - but differing light and cameras can cause different colour results. Canistrum fosterianum has a more upright form in its leaves, versus triangulare more open - well, from my experience anyway.

'Roid - I have never seen a labeled montanum grown in this neck of the woods. How does it differ to fosterianum?

K

Matt,

My shade house happens to look like yours except the roof is lower about 6ft from the ground.

Nev
May I know what is that dark red/maroon one in the first picture at 2.30 position. Thanks!

Hi Lyndi,

It's one I got recently and has the name of Neoregelia Royal Burgundy 'Supreme'. I doubt that it's the correct name though as it doesn't have the pink margins like the one in the FCBS Photo Index. On the other hand it may be a NOVAR of that plant (where it's lost its variegation).

Neo. Royal Burgundy Supreme

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I'll check again later this morning as I have another one that's similar and it's just called Neoregelia Burgundy. I'll let you know if it's the latter.

All the best, Nev.

Nev, I have circled the plant I queried. Thanks!
I love the way your weather bring out the pink coloration in the neoregelias.

Sorry, the picture:-
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Hi Lyndi,

Yes the name on that plant is as I suspected, Royal Burgundy 'Supreme'.

It's one of my dissapointments though as I bought it as advertised with that name and no pic. It should have had the pink margins and looked like the one in the pic in my last post. It looks to me more like the plain Burgundy shown in the FCBS photo index. What do you think?

Does anyone else have anything to add?

All the best, Nev.

Hi again all,

Lyndi, you said "I love the way your weather bring out the pink coloration in the neoregelias".

I must say that the weather this year hasn't been much different to any other year down here but I have changed my shade cloth from 50% black to 75% beige and I believe the colours are 25% better this year than in previous years.

We still have to see how they tolerate the hot January weather beneath the lighter colour though, fingers crossed that things will be OK.

All the best, Nev.

Nev and Lyndi - twice now I have bought Neo. 'Royal Burgundy Supreme'. Like you Nev, I was hoping for the pink margins. I paid big dollars too. Both of them are also a disappointment, with only the slightest margins observed up-close - otherwise, they just look like 'Royal Burgundy', of which I now have several. I have tried growing them under different light and mix conditions, to no avail. All the pups are the same...bummer!

Has anyone had better luck than Nev and me?

K :(

WOW - thanks to all who posted pics - I would say they have me jealous but perhaps inspired is a better word. You folks have some beautiful broms there!!

Paul - will be interested to see how the full sun experiment goes. This is my first year growing broms and many Neos loved the winter sun and coloured up well but the sun here in Nth West Vic was a bit much for some over the past few weeks, leaving a few battered and burned. Still at least the heat is making them grow so is a matter of now experimenting with light/shade myself.

Am hoping to knock up a bit of a shade house here so great to see the pics you guys have posted.

Nev - I was going to ask about the best type of shade cloth to use so cheers - sounds like 75% beige is the go? By the sounds of it yr in Vic? I'm in Nth West Vic so may be somewhat similar conditions.

Great post people - has got me drooling!

Hi Kristan,

No I'm not in Vic., I'm on the south east coast of NSW just south of Wollongong one street back from the ocean so I have a very different climate to yours.

As for the shade cloth, before you jump in and get what I'm using, maybe there's someone here with a similar climate to yours who could give you some advice on what's best.

All the best, Nev.