Show Us Your Bromeliads!

[Gonzer]

On 6/28/2020 at 7:32 AM, mwardlow said:

That is a great tip. I usually just wack the mother completely.

Thanks!

It doesn't just help the existing pups but also stimulates the formation of more pups. We have some plants whose mother stock looks like crap but they keep producing.

[Umbrae]

9 minutes ago, Gonzer said:

 

thanks G , I'll have to check that out , the names on these things gets easily distorted with the different vendors 

[Umbrae]

On 6/29/2020 at 3:12 PM, Gonzer said:

 

[Gonzer]

12 hours ago, Umbrae said:

 

 

 

 

Drain holes?

[Umbrae]

2 hours ago, Gonzer said:

Drain holes?

it weeps naturally, that's a chunk of washie trunk I hollowed out , plus up on the bench in my bromie house it won't get overwatered 

[Umbrae]

a little therapy going this morning

[Umbrae]

[waykoolplantz]

[Gonzer]

Some of my own hybrid Billbergias that just had their 14th birthday (from seed to present)

From left to right; 'Chewbaca', 'Natural Thing', 'Highway Star', 'Stone Free', and 'California Dreamin'.

[palmsOrl]

Here are a couple Tillandsia species native to the Orlando area of Florida.  I acquired all of these specimens off of branches that had fallen to the ground or as plants that had themselves been dislodged.

Tillandsia utriculata, collected from a fallen branch in Seminole County.  In the back in the clear pot is a Tillandsia balbisiana and a small clump of Tillandsia recurvata.

The Florida endemic Tillandsia simulata?

Tillandsia setacea, Tillandsia bartramii or Tillandsia x floridana.

[Tampa Scott]

On 7/5/2020 at 4:37 PM, Gonzer said:

Some of my own hybrid Billbergias that just had their 14th birthday (from seed to present)

From left to right; 'Chewbaca', 'Natural Thing', 'Highway Star', 'Stone Free', and 'California Dreamin'.

All look GREAT! The 'Chewbaca' is my favorite of all. Would love to see a solo picture of it. 

[Tampa Scott]

XNeomea 'Exquisita' in flower. 

Edited July 6, 2020 by Tampa Scott

[Gonzer]

9 hours ago, Tampa Scott said:

All look GREAT! The 'Chewbaca' is my favorite of all. Would love to see a solo picture of it. 

 

[Tampa Scott]

Gonzer, Thanks for the close photo of 'Chewbaca. I have always been a fan of Billbergia 'Darth Vader', but your 'Chewbaca'  beats 'Darth Vader'. 

[mwardlow]

Someone just gave me this one. Have never seen this one before. Any ideas of what it is?

[palmsOrl]

6 minutes ago, mwardlow said:

Someone just gave me this one. Have never seen this one before. Any ideas of what it is?

Woah!   I have no idea which it is, but I want it.  That is just too bizarre and fascinating in appearance.

[palmsOrl]

Last summer, I removed the ratty undercared for liriope clumps that plagued this forgotten slice of earth on the side of my grandparent's property and decided that a garden space does not have to be front and center to be worth looking at least presentable, so with a little creativity and just barely enough bromeliads that my dad had managed to salvage from his former home, I was able to complete this triangular green space last year with some interesting bromeliads.

 

In the past month, I decided to take the project a step further and complete the front half of the empty plot with some Calathea that were now in great over-abundance in another planter, so there was plenty of material to transplant to this new area.  

The finishing touch was to include a small Australian tree fern I found at Home Depot on Father's Day for $7.98.  It was a little roughed up but it has started to put out new growth.  The other four tree ferns for sale next to it at Home Depot appeared to have literally been trampled. 

This spot should provide a bit of shelter for this tree fern until it grows a bit and once it is about head height it should have adequate partial shade and lots of horizontal space as it spreads out.  I plan to provide supplemental hand-watering for at least 3 months until everything is well-established.

[palmsOrl]

So, I am growing two clumps of this interesting trailing Tillandsia species.  One is the picture of perfect health, growing attached to the trunk of a potted Dracaena at the house. 

The piece in the below photo came loose a couple months back so I took it home and hung it in a palm with some Spanish moss.  Recently, it suddenly went down hill and I thought it was dead or nearly so, thus I almost threw it away.  In the past week, however, the plant appears to be showing some signs of recovery.  It does look rough in the photo, but it looked dead 10 days ago.

Any idea which species this is?  I am thinking possibly Tillandsia albida, but while I love Tillandsia, I am not exactly an expert.  This photo of Tillandsia albida below is included for reference.

Photo credit: 

https://www.tillandsia-prod.com/fr/arrosage-modere/20-t-albida.html

Now that I looked into it a bit further, my plant might also be Tillandsia paleacea.

Photo Credit: 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tillandsia_paleacea

Also, are some Tillandsia species sensitive to water quality?  I wondered if maybe the hot, dry-spell resulting in frequent tap water applications may be making this apparent, and since it started raining again in the past 10 days, it is recovering(?).  Thoughts?

Finally, regarding water quality, it always recieved either rain water or Winter Park tap water at the house and Winter Park tap water is far superior to that of surrounding communities.  Just do a taste test!

-Michael

[palmsOrl]

I found this Tillandsia clump on a small branch in the middle of the driveway today, so I figured I would keep it.  Tillandsia bartramii is the species I believe.

[Gonzer]

9 hours ago, palmsOrl said:

So, I am growing two clumps of this interesting trailing Tillandsia species.  One is the picture of perfect health, growing attached to the trunk of a potted Dracaena at the house. 

The piece in the below photo came loose a couple months back so I took it home and hung it in a palm with some Spanish moss.  Recently, it suddenly went down hill and I thought it was dead or nearly so, thus I almost threw it away.  In the past week, however, the plant appears to be showing some signs of recovery.  It does look rough in the photo, but it looked dead 10 days ago.

Any idea which species this is?  I am thinking possibly Tillandsia albida, but while I love Tillandsia, I am not exactly an expert.  This photo of Tillandsia albida below is included for reference.

 

 

Also, are some Tillandsia species sensitive to water quality?  I wondered if maybe the hot, dry-spell resulting in frequent tap water applications may be making this apparent, and since it started raining again in the past 10 days, it is recovering(?).  Thoughts?

Finally, regarding water quality, it always recieved either rain water or Winter Park tap water at the house and Winter Park tap water is far superior to that of surrounding communities.  Just do a taste test!

-Michael

Where did that clump fall from? It certainly doesn't look like a species indigenous to FL. It's definitely not albida or palacea. Palacea has many forms (I'll post some later today)

Also, are some Tillandsia species sensitive to water quality?  Yes, but primarily only the mesic species that require potting due to their size. Tillandsias are pretty forgiving about water quality  unless it's really alkaline. Just make sure when watering them to completely saturate the entire plant and not just wet the surface.

[Gonzer]

On 7/8/2020 at 2:33 PM, mwardlow said:

Someone just gave me this one. Have never seen this one before. Any ideas of what it is?

A cultivar of Aechmea.

 

[Tampa Scott]

Aechmea 'Loie's Pride' 

[Tampa Scott]

Here is a look at a unknown spineless flavo marginated Aechmea. 

[palmsOrl]

Gonzer, sorry for the confusion.  The clump you are referring to didn't fall from a local branch and wasn't collected locally.  It came loose from the rest of the clump, all of which was attached to a potted Dracaena of mine.

This Tillandsia was generously given to me during a tour of the old Rollins College greenhouse in May of 2019.

So it for sure isn't palacea, huh?  I will keep looking at photos online.

Thank you for the advice regarding watering of these plants.  I will try to keep it to just rain water or purified if possible, for good measure and will thoroughly wet the plants each time.

[Gonzer]

6 minutes ago, palmsOrl said:

Gonzer, sorry for the confusion.  The clump you are referring to didn't fall from a local branch and wasn't collected locally.

This Tillandsia was generously given to me during a tour of the old Rollins College greenhouse in May of 2019.

No prob. First notion was that it's a hybrid of the Mexican ionantha (long form) but it's REALLY long, so let's wait.

Here are the various forms of T. paleacea that I grow for your viewing pleasure;

l -r  - distichous form,  small compact, medium, semi-distichous

[Gonzer]

another view of the distichous form

[Gonzer]

and one more

[Gonzer]

large form and the commonly seen 'flaca' variety

[Gonzer]

another large form

[Gonzer]

large fuzzy form

[Gonzer]

the biggest form

Edited July 12, 2020 by Gonzer

[Gonzer]

two forms from Apuremac, MX

[Gonzer]

Unidentified locale, similar to v. apuremacensis

[Gonzer]

lastly, an unknown medium form

[palmsOrl]

Gonzer, you have impressive collection there!  Thank you for sharing and educating us on some of these interesting little plants.  I would guess mine is a medium fuzzy, "Flaca" form.

[Gonzer]

6 minutes ago, palmsOrl said:

Gonzer, you have impressive collection there!  Thank you for sharing and educating us on some of these interesting little plants.  I would guess mine is a medium fuzzy, "Flaca" form.

In regards to your plant, from the one pic, I lean towards T. albida and not palacea. Only one glitch...albida doesn't pup like yours is showing. More pics? Please?

[palmsOrl]

Gonzer, I just snapped these photos of the smaller remaining portion of the plant that has attached itself to the Dracaena trunk.  As you can see, it is very healthy and appears to have recently set seed.  I hadn't realized that first shot came out so blurry.

[Gonzer]

That looks like a nice plant of T. funkiana.

[palmsOrl]

You are the expert Gonzer, but looking at. some photos, I would be inclined to agree 100%.  Thank you.

I notice you work for Birdrock Tropicals.  Great operation!  I bought more than a few Catopsis from you guys during my 2008 Catopsis craze.  I ended up with like 13 species of Catopsis.  This sudden interest all started when I bought a Catopsis berteroniana seedling on eBay in mid 2008.  Then I wanted to collect them all for some reason.  I like to grow more unusual, less common stuff.

Additionally, around that same time, I built a collection of every single Florida native Tillandsia species and hybrid and mounted them all onto one shapely limb that had to be cut from our naval orange tree.

So, over the years I have grown every single Florida native bromeliad species and hybrid except for Catopsis Floribunda.  I never have been able to find that species for sale.

[palmsOrl]

On 7/12/2020 at 4:25 PM, Gonzer said:

another view of the distichous form

I would love to grow this one at some point.