What beautiful healthy plants Paul.Love your Green Stripes and the white vriesea flowering at your mates place.
Was that a gum tree in your yard?If so do you have any tips for getting leaves out of you plants without ripping all your skin off?
Thanks for posting,I enjoyed it very much.
Fran

Hey Paul...I totally agree with Fran (Hi Fran!) Lovely plants; well done!! And of course what is that whitey at ya mate's place, up behind Megan, hmmm???

I also like the pin-stripes of the Hawaiian hybrid; I have one of those coming along - but way smaller than yours.

Good job!

Shane

Paul,

Very nice looking plants, maybe you should try mounting a couple ephically.

The well known singer, entertainer and part time Brom enthusiast Kerry put on a show at our local Brom meeting recently and had some great photos of Vrieseas growing as ephites.

Cheers,

Rick

Hi Paul ,yup i like your piccies to ,the white Vr, at your mates place looks nice ,how about a close up of that ? the plant you have as 'Royal Hawaiian hybrid ' looks more like a ' Mauna Kea ' x self, NO NOT 'SNOWS OF M.K ' THATS A TOTALLY DIFFERENT BREEDING LINE ,its typical of the crossing of VR.gigantea 'seideliana' x Vr.platynema variegata = Vr.'Mauna Kea ' and selfings carry the lines even more . but its nice . Love your 'green stripe ' you can keep me in mind for a pup .Your 'Snows of Mauna Kea ' is similar to mine but i suspect we both have a selfing of it,still nice ,but they are not quite white enough ,and plant shape is also not correct but i am happy with it just the same.All the plants of 'Roro' that i have seen are the upright form ,and the 'Highway Beauty ' the arching plant it gets more pink and shows the spots ,and is that Vr.'Montezuma's Gem in the group shot ? they all look great ,Jack

Hi Paul,
What a great lot of Vrieseas you've got. I especialy like the Vr. glutinosa 'Galaxy', something a bit different.

That's a nice collection at your mates place also. Was that the same mate you brought down to our place?

Fran, as for removing leaves without tearing yourself to pieces (Vrieseas and Guzzies excepted), I use a long (10") pair of forceps.

These are available from the "Home Care" people who drop a catalogue at our door every month. They are stainless steel and cost about $10 and worth every cent.

Since a Brom. Society member first showed us, our society now sells them also.

Chopsticks are also handy for leaf removal if you know how to use them.

All the best, Nev.

Hi Paul, some very nice plants here. Love that Vr glutinosa Galaxy. Thanks for sharing them all with us. Since you have got into folage vriesea's cant resist showing some pics of what was on sale at our annual spring sale from Andrew maloy, over the weekend. And yes before any one inquires about parantage I dont know.

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pic7
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sorry if some are a little out of focus, my excuse was the sales area was quite dark.

Hey Paul - beautiful foliage vriesea collection you have there! Thanks for the "show and tell".
I'm also especially impressed with your 'Green Stripe' and your mate's mostly-white one.
Your 'Galaxy' is also stunning, with lovely strong variegation. Mine is coming into flower spike, but has lost all of its variegation on the upper leaves...bummer. Some of the grass pups are variegated, but I guess I'll have to wait yonks to get them to a decent size. I know Richard Bromnutter has had the same problem with his - anyone else?

LOL about the singing Rick! Ahh - what one must do when there are techno sound glitches!

J+A - superb vrieseas there! Oh, to have available so many glorious foliage vrieseas up for grabs in one place, and all with set prices. The ones that caught my eye the most are those in the foreground of Pic 5 - are they Vr. 'Pacific Blush' or ? So did you manage to recycle sales money on some more beauties? Did you save some for the "Visit Kerry Fund"? Was there a competitive show as well? I always enjoy your annual spring show reports - any more pics?

K :)

Ah Kerry they are not 'Pacific blush' The red is much more intense in these and heres another red one as this 'caught your eye'
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And yes had to be dragged away repeatly from this area but we both picked one each so yes will be in positive side from plant sales. Did have a lot of fun selling these beauties to the public, its a bit of a free for all at these sales, we all sell each others plants.
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The plant on the left is named Vriesea 'Mokau spray' and the other coincidentally Paul is a wide leaf 'pin strip' that caaught my eye and is named Vriesea 'Matai Spray'

Just love the plants for sale Jaga in Pic 7 those plants look identical to my VR.Daintree Forest x fosteriana ,do like the red flushed plants ,looks like ' Noels Crush' was the parent there , with ' Galaxy' i found that some grass pups can take a long time to show variegations ,so Kerry dont write them all of ,and yes when in spike a few top leaves seem to lose the white stripe.Selfings have not produced any variegates ! Bummer . Paul i will post a seperate piccie of my Vr.'Snows of Mauna Kea ' for comparison to yours ok ? cheers all .Jack

Hi everyone, thanks for all your comments.

John&Agatha, what a visual feast you've given us! Those red barred plants and the broad-leaf pinstripe ones are real eye-grabbers, among lots of other lovely plants. Thanks for showing them. It really keeps the daydreams churning away - all those new possibilities!

And Jack, yes that is Montezuma's Gem in the middle of my group shot. It is one of my absolute favourites and just keeps looking better and better as it grows. It's one of those plants where the more you look at it, the more there is to see and appreciate. Thanks for making a great one.

I was wondering if that big white one at my mate's place would get a few bites (the slack so-and-so reckons that now he's retired, he doesn't have time to post pics himself. Ha! And yes Nev, you know who it is). So, here it is - bought a couple of years ago as a pup of Vr. 'Snows of Mauna Kea F2' from Shane Z. Pic taken about a month ago. Plant is just about a metre wide and gets a bit more pink edging and maybe a bit brighter white in the summer.
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Jack, I'm with you on the 'Snows of Mauna Kea' bit. Since SoMK is mainly (if not entirely?) fosteriana, all those pinstripes are a bit of a stretch, but it would sure fit in with the background of 'Mauna Kea' (gigantea seideliana x platynema variegata). Whatever it is, I've been waiting for 2 years to get my hands on a pup! Now it's coming into flower, maybe that pup is not too far off.

Fran, I must confess that the broms out in the yard only get the leaves cleaned out when I get the mad urge to do a tidy-up. Since it is deliberately an ultra-low (I'm trying for zero!) maintenance garden, and since this sort of cleaning frenzy only manages to get hold of me once every few years, most of the broms never get cleaned out. The leaf fall from the big gum trees is concentrated a bit during late December (just in time for bushfire season), but otherwise it is pretty continuous through the year and the broms seem quite able to cope with that sort of spread-out leaf load. The only real issue is when the trees shed their outer layer of bark over a couple of weeks in the middle of summer and completely bury the broms at their base, so once a year, after the bark-fall has finished, I spend about ten minutes raking the bark off the broms that have been buried, by hand, with the obligatory elbow-length leather gardening gloves that I use whenever I go anywhere near the big Neos or the Portea petropolitana patch.

All this has worked fine for the last 18 years with the plants allowed to grow as they like into clumps and broken up occasionally. Now that I'm about to put some special feature broms out there (new fence = no deer!) I might just keep them a bit tidier. Nev's big forceps + long leather gloves for the big spikies work just fine. For big plants full of fallen leaves I find that stainless steel kitchen tongs are pretty good, especially if the plants have narrow throats, but just scooping out big handfuls of leaves with soggy gloves is a lot more satisfying. I probably should note that the soil is horrible barren sandy stuff with most of the moisture sucked out of it pretty quickly by the big trees, so even if the broms are full of soggy rotting leaf litter, they would probably never be sitting in a soggy growing medium. Never had one rot - fatalities only after being jumped-on by the $*&5#@$ deer.

Sorry about the length of that ramble, but a lot of them can make such brilliant super-low maintenance garden plants and that often seems to get lost in the excitement of beautiful specimen plants - by self included. Now, where can I put some more ......

Cheers, Paul

Hi Paul, thats a beaut plant ,and similar to a plant i produced a few years ago (not reg, yet) wich i called ' Super Nova ' this one a bit whiter and yes the cross was the same as 'Mauna Kea ' and yes as 'Snows of M.K' is 3/4 fosteriana ,then if selfed it really gives you twice as much fosteriana ,so you can only get scribbled plants from it ( been there done that) but selfings of hybrids do produce nice plants ,great show. And even if i say it myself Paul ,all who have seen the Vr. 'Montezuma's Gem' admire it ,if i never produce any more i will still be happy , I do wonder though ,what will we be producing in a few more generations around the world in all the various Broms ? any one now starting out with breeding has the world at their feet ,Cheers Jack

Paul, great plants, and thanks for the excuse to post these pups of Arden hybrids I got back in March that I never posted. Normally Vrieseas aren't on my shopping list but, well, sometimes ya know.....

Maroon Jewel
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Frolic
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Dusty Shadow
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Egyptian Sunset
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Hi Gonzer,

You're most welcome. Every excuse is a good one! Really nice plants there. I especially like the 'Frolic'. Thanks for sharing them. Cheers, Paul

(NB the yellow Till? spike in the background of the first pic ain't bad either - spectacular!)

Hi Paul

Thanks for following up on H/way Beauty & RoRo, yes have guey gunk on mine also, only flowered a couple this season so not a big sampling which is why we put it out for discussion, hoping to get a greater amount of feed back.
I'm looking at the platynema's at the moment for the guey gunk, which we do have some on them. Mick's photo on FCBS of platynema v. platynema shows plenty of the stuff. This also helps support the the theory that plat. v. plat. may be a more likely parent than bituminosa, considering the red bracts on this group of plants that can't have come from bituminosa or saundersii, both having yellow/green bracts.
Hope we get more input from others with their thoughts also as to where the red bracts may have come from & the guey stuff.

Pinkbroms

Hi Ross ,i never thought that Bituminosa was in them as leaf tips are wrong and the shape of plant does not fit,and yes the bract colour is a dead give away as well,so i'm with you on that cheers Jack

looks like the wish list is getting longer! lol
I fell in love with broms due to the foliage colour/patterning of Neos (at first thought Vrieseas were bland foliage only grown for flower - ducks for cover) but WOW have seen some amazing looking vr. on here tonight so looks like the addiction is getting deeper and broader! hhmmm better check under the couch again for some $$$ lol so can add to my Fosterania and Hieroglyphica

Kristan