By plants you mean broms right? Bare root, or in a pot? If bare root, put in a bag with some holes and wrap in tons of newspaper. Ship 2-3 day or overnight! With pot, just wrap the pot with a plastic shopping bag cinched tight around the plant base so as to not lose moisture or medium. Just make sure there is at least 4 inches of cushion around the plant on all ends, use wads of newspaper or styrofoam peanuts.
-Nick

Hi Nev,
I usually take off all the potting mix I can,I do this because my mix contains gravel which is weighty and i dont want gravel accidently running around the parcel...lol. you can give the plant a nice good wet down and wash.I try to make sure there is no scale or yuckies on or in the leaves then I let sit to dry somewhere out of the sun, moisten roots lightly again and you can wrap in alfoil to keep the mix in and the roots together. Some people wrap up the leaves like a big icecream cone gently and carefully...(not too tight),with newspaper to keep leaves all in place, then place in box...you can put shredded newspaper for cushioning where there are gaps around the place to fill the rest of the box.
If you have more then one plant, just lay then top n toe to make use of all the gaps, if you know what i mean?
If the leaves looks like they are squashed a little,(not a direct fold or crease though as that will scar for life) they will usually bounce back out in short time as long as the reciever gives them a nice all over shower when they take them out of the box.

Have you purchased broms before through the mail?
I have done alot of purchasing through the mail and this is where i have learnt what to do and what not to do.Many people have different ways. A brom is extremely hardy and hardly ever anything goes wrong. They dont need any water in their cups at all.
I live at one end of Australia so if someone down south sends me a brom i usually get it within a week and surprisingly they come out very well.

All you can do it try your best and hope they come out good in the end...LOL

Cheers Germaine

NEVER use plastic...It conducts cold...and in the heat it will slime up the plants...use only newspaper or similar paper...it will make a big difference if the mail delays the arrival....only slight moisture on the paper after the plants are wrapped.

Hi Nev, I've not sent any myself but as a confirmed eBay addict, I've received plenty from lots of different sellers through our Oz Post and couriers. nebu's and Germaine's comments cover it pretty well and the point from HDD about plastic is a good one, particularly if the plants are in the post for a week or so, which can happen occasionally. Probably much better off a little on the dry side rather than sweating in a confined space.

I've only ever had one problem and I know of other people who have had the same thing happen, where leaves (even when wrapped) in near contact with the outer carton appear to be freezer-burnt. I can only imagine that this happens when plants are held for a prolonged period in an aircraft cargo hold. You would think that a bit of open packing, eg shredded paper, between the wrapped plant and the carton would be enough to prevent this in most cases.

Hope this helps. Cheers, Paul

Nev,

I have only sent a few plants through the post, I put some wet sphagnum moss in the cup and packaged them up in a box dry rooted.

It is probably a good idea to post early in the week so that they aren't sitting around in a mailroom over the weekend.

Cheers,

Rick

Once I received Neo Hannibal Lecter, it was sent completely dry, unrooted, and stayed more than 2 weeks in the post, it showed not a slightest sign of dehydration. Most bromeliads are drought resistant, some very drought resistant, at the other side humidity without air circulation could mean rot.

I always wanted to learn what is the temperature in the cargo space of the airplane!

Tomas

How many are you sending, Nev, and how far (i.e. are there any Ag inspection issues)? Pups or mature plants? Which genus/genera?

We don't do any small individual orders-- when we ship we send a LOT at one time, so some of this may not be applicable to your situation. We always bare-root everything and remove all of the soil and most of the roots, and then wash them several times, and visually inspect them each time to make sure they are squeaky clean! A dip in insecticide/fungicide will help take care of anything you may have missed, but if you don't have to worry about Ag inspection, this may not be necessary.

Pups are much easier to send than mature plants, and despite what you may think, they ship better dry. The only losses we've had were when the Ag inspectors filled the cups with water, sloshed it around and dumped it out looking for creepy-crawlies, and since we have to pack the plants right in front of them, they were still wet when they went into the box. The Vrieseas had turned to mush by the time they arrived (about 4 or 5 days later), but everything else survived. We've never had any problem when they went into the box dry.

You can get a lot of plants into a fairly small box by simply rolling each one up in a sheet of newspaper and packing the "tubes" as tightly as you can. Billbergias are the easiest to do since they're already tubular. For most Neos, Vrieseas, Aechmeas, etc., just lay the pup on its side on the paper and make sure none of the leaves are folded back, then squeeze it gently as you roll it up, to make a tight, compact bundle. Don't squeeze so hard that you hear a "crack", though. The plants recover quite well from this, and if the recipient will soak them in a tub of water for about an hour after unpacking them, they'll perk right up in a day or so, and you'd never know they'd been cramped in a little box for several days. Cryptanthus are among the more difficult genera to pack, as many of them don't lend themselves to being rolled up into a tube. In that case, you may have to just make a little packet around it. Likewise Dyckias and other stiffer varieties may call for a bit of improvising.

Basically, though, just wrap everything tightly in newspaper and pack the box tightly so they won't be rattling around in there. The more movement, the more potential for damage, so use the smallest box for the amount you're sending, and if there is still extra space, fill it with packing, whether it be packing peanuts, shredded or crumpled paper, etc. We do line the box with plastic to keep it dry, and haven't had any problems with it except for that one time. The plastic is not in direct contact with the plants, however. Of course, make sure you put a name tag with each plant, preferably tucked into the leaf so that it won't get lost. Also include an invoice if applicable (we put it inside the box in a zip-lock bag).

Good luck!

Hi Nev,
I see you are from Australia. No problems posting state to state except not to WA or Tasmania due to quarantine restrictions. I take the soil off the roots and place the plant in a cardboard box packed with shredded paper. No big deal and I've never had any problems.

Hi Everyone - thanks for all the feedback.

Paul, the reason for this post in the first place was that I recently took delivery of a plant in a similar condition to the one you describe.

I received an order of 3 Vrieseas, 1 Aechmea and 1 Ursulaea Mcvaughii from a bromeliad nursery in NSW and when they arrived, the Ursulaea (which was packed in between the other plants and not near the extremity of the box) had similar damage to what you describe.
When I contacted the nursery, the only reason the owner could suggest was that it may have been wet when packed.

I was offered a refund or replacement and I chose the replacement. However when it arrived it had similar damage even though it has been well packed with extra newspaper around it for insulation and the owner had checked personally that it was dry when packed.

Again I was offered a refund or replacement and this time I opted for a replacement of an Aechmea instead. When it arrived it was OK, and it seems to me it was just that one type of plant.

The only reason I could think of was that perhaps because the leaves on the Ursulaea are more of a succulent type than the other plants, maybe they don't travel as well, but the owner later informed me that they had since sent similar plants to the opposite side of Australia (W.A.) and they had arrived in good condition.

Below are a couple of pic's taken immediately after I unpacked the plants on my potting bench.
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I must say at this stage that I am very satisfied with the after sales service and the final outcome I received from the nursery as they did everything they could to sort out the problem.

I would have no hesitation in dealing with them again, but I am still puzzled as to the cause.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

All the best, Nev.

Hi Nev, the following pics show the plant I described:

Neo. Manoa Beauty, straight after unpacking on day received (14 Feb 08), after being in post for 2 days. The yellowish patches on the leaves are completely dead, the rest of the plant is completely alive and unharmed, with nothing in between. Looks just like frost burn rather than any type of rot or other progressive deterioration.
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Same plant in same position almost exactly 24hrs later. Patches that were yellowish the day before are now completely brown, dry and crisp. No sign of any further deterioration in the rest of the plant.
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Same plant in Dec 08 (bottom left corner of pic), just about grown completely over the damage and starting to look great. Entire plant including damaged leaves remained completely healthy apart from original damaged parts (trimmed off).
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This plant had quite clearly been in top condition when it was packed and it had been packed with obvious care. It was from a top seller from whom I have bought a quite number of other plants and they have always been excellent specimens and very well packed. A brom-mad mate had the exact same symptoms and results with a Vr. Nova and a Neo. Amazing Grace packed together, from a different but also very good, reliable seller.

Nev, the patches on that plant of yours look very similar to the patches on my Manoa Beauty on the day I opened it - did it progress the same way? or did it continue to deteriorate? If they went the same way, it could well be the same thing. Different broms have widely differing resistances to frost burn, ie the leaf tissue of some will freeze at a much higher temperature than others because of differences in their structure and chemistry and this is an all-or-nothing thing - if ice crystals form in the tissue they destroy the tissue virtually instantly, if they don't form, then there is no immediate damage - so it is quite possible for a less resistant plant to freeze in the middle of a parcel, while more resistant ones on the outside stay OK.

What do you think? The fact that the same thing happened to you twice while the seller had no problems sending elsewhere seems to suggest that the cause had something to do with the particular pathway that was taken through the logistics network from the seller to you. I deal with sending parcels all over the country as part of my job and can tell you that things do not always work as you might expect, eg. parcels that would normally go by road overnight from Sydney to Brisbane (around 950km) end up going by air via Perth (3300km there plus 3300km back), repeatedly, until a malfunctioning automated sortation system at a mail or courier depot somewhere is fixed. Isn't modern technology...