Gordon,

Your garden is looking good, you are lucky to have nice large trees to put them under.

Nice to see one has made it up in the tree.

Cheers,
Rick

Hey Gordon - nice display!! That is a great tree (what is it?) - and look at all those perfect, bare, angled branches just waiting for more additions. Oh, to have an unadulterated tree like that, just begging for broms to be attached to it. I have run out of branches now - they're all full!

The next Bris. meeting (BSQ) in April (15th) will have a presentation on growing broms epiphytically - come along? Then you might be sorry you didn't attach broms first, before planting underneath. Might be a bit tricky finding space to stand, and for ladders, while attaching them to those delicious rough branches.

K :)

Hi Gordon,

The garden's looking good, and what about that tree? Wouldn't it look good draped in brom's?

As Kerry says, you could be sorry you didn't attach the brom's before you planted the garden, however, where there's a will there's a way, for example you could put a trestle either side of the garden and then a plank on top of them to create a good working platform across your garden. There you go, job done!

All the best, Nev.

Evening All

I have to say that I am a bit impartial to covering the tree in broms just yet, it adds such great contrast to the underplanted items, I would hate to lose that. It's actually a very very old frangipani (about 9-10 meters high by about 6 wide) and I have so far only attached three items out of curiosity! I didn't think to put them up there until I had planted the stock underneath, however I am at a distinct advantage! Being 26, I can easily enough scale the tree with hose clenched in teeth to take care of anything I put up really high. That was how I got one of my Ae. Rakete's 4 metres into the air! I also left a solid couple of gaps in the bottom stuff so I can tip toe in to the base of the tree to skip up when I need to check on things. Secretly I still love climbing tree's like a kid and sitting up there about the birds and wasting half an hour!

I can't make it to the BSQ for a 15th meeting as i live up on the Sunshine Coast and do work a long Thursday in retail! However any weekend meets or Sunshine Coast meets I will be doing my best to come along to when I can escape the family. :)

Regards
Gordon.

Hi Gordon,

Glad to see someone else getting rid of that nasty green fuzzy stuff that grows on the ground. Good work! And I'm with Kerry, Rick and Nev - don't know how you can resist a bit more on that beaut old frangipani.

Cheers, Paul

Gordon your new garden looks fantastic. I look forward to seeing developing pictures in the future.

In regards to Kerry's comment - All the BSQ meetings are held on the 3rd Thursday of each month @ the Merthyr rd Uniting Church Newfarm @ 6.30pm onwards. Lucky for us Kerry is able to attend from NSW to give us yet another fantastic talk about her beloved garden....;)
This is certainly a once off and definitely worth attending for.

One closer would be the Caboolture Brom society meet. They gather every 4th Saturday at the Caboolture show grounds which might suit you better. They too have great talks and sales but unfortunately won't be having Kerry's fantastic talks... lol

Evening Garden Webber's!

Thanks to Paul & Matt for the kind words! I'm thinking of ways to get out of work to attend this 15th meeting now! I am sure I have plenty to learn about attachment and what species suit best. I have added some photo's of todays progress, I have cleaned out another garden bed, it is circular with a large tree in the centre, bed is about 6 metres across & good afternoon sun, dappled all day. I am going to use it for all the 'old mothers' that I have to give them somewhere to rot away and pup for me, I figure I can feed them without too much fear of them losing colour and hopefully swindle an extra few pups off them before they are totally rogered.

I also managed to plant some more gear up in the main bed! Photo's attached.

Main Bed Continues.

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Any Ideas What This is? I have stuck it up the tree and it's shooting a little offset now. No idea what it is but I do have a couple here and there.

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An old Neo thats shooting a little variegated pup. As usual I don't know what this is but it has a single variegated leaf at its base and coming out from next to it a variegated pup.

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Lastly after reading Nev's seed guide (and some ideas from an old post of Lisa's) I have managed to somehow sprout a couple of neo seeds in the greenhouse. Not ideal timing or equipment but fun all the same to watch them grow! They came from Hal Ellis but had been pollenated by the world at large so really could become any number of things. I promise not to let them sully any gene pools in the future. :)

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Kind Regards
Gordon.

Nice gardening, Gordon.

First I thought your unidentified brom might be a Vr vagans, but the black at the base of the leaves usually goes a bit higher up. Might be Vr erythrodactylon if it is a small plant. It looks also very much like my Vr incurvata x erythrodactylon and that is about 20cm tall. How tall is your plant?

Japie

Gordon

I found an old picture for you with all three of the above mentioned in it. Right in the centre of the picture, against the upright portion of a dead tree trunk, is Vr vagans. A bit lower and to its left on the horisontal portion of the same tree trunk, is a cluster of Vr erythrodactylon. And in the right side of the picture, at the top of that railway sleeper, is Vr incurvata x erythrodactylon in flower.

Japie

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Hi Japie

Thanks for the extensive reply. I have to say they do look a lot like a Vagan but as you said the colour seems very low compared to yours? I have a few plants out there which are the same as the one pictured and the height of the colour is about the same each time. I will measure each plant and have a look again when I can, from memory they are about 25-30cm's at most.

More pics to come! I am about to get back out there now and do some planting / mulching. :)

Regards
Gordon.

Alrighty I have attached a couple shots from this afternoon. I can only assume these are Vagans from the picture you have posted. Mine don't however seem to have as much colouring by any means but the shape and size is certainly spot on! This mother is starting to fade but has shot 3 offsets already and will probably stay healthy enough to soldier on a whilst longer!

Another one from the collection.

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Slight marking in the cup too.

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Thanks for the help in solving another riddle! I have about 40 to go. :)

Regards
Gordon.

Hi everyone,

While Vagans is the topic, does anyone have a pic of one in flower they could post. I've had one for years and it just grows and puts up pups but has never flowered for me. Is it shy at flowering or is it just something I'm doing wrong.

All the best, Nev.

Hi Nev

I am as you know quite the novice at all of this, if I was to try and force the plant to flower would the old apple and a bag trick work? I have honestly got enough of these to sacrifice one for the greater good if it answers some questions. I can't find any reference to this plant name online, in fact our little thread here is on the front page of google when you try and search for it! Perhaps they are known by another name elsewhere?

Regards
Gordon.

Hi Gordon...when I Google vagans I see quite a few good links; one showing habitat pics. Dunno about the apple & bag trick, but have heard of it.

Love ya garden, and I vote for filling that lovely frangipani up also!

Not sure if this link will work..(I just Googled 'Vriesea vagans.')

Shane

Here is a link that might be useful: Googled Vriesea vagans

Hi all,

I guess I must have had a "seniors moment" as I never gave a thought to looking on the web for a pic.

However this brings another question to mind. Is Vriesea Vagans as shown in the FCBS Photo Index and Vriesea Vagans (Rhine) as shown on Google the same plant or two different plants?

All the best, Nev.

Morning All

I just realised I was searching for Vriesea Vagan. Not with the 'S' on the end, there is heaps of results if you search for "Vagans" (even though image search turned up some questionable content!) I will keep an eye on mine and see if I can get one to bloom through neglect & poor conditions. :)

Regards
Gordon.

Just returned from a family trip, so adding belated comments here.

Gordon - I must agree that the bare trunks of your old Frangipani are an attractive contrast to the colourful, varied textures below. It's just such a wonderful would-be host for some epiphytes - not often available.

Thanks to Matt and Rick for their compliments. Watch out, I might use you two as living examples on which to attach broms - in a demonstration at that next meeting in Brisbane. 'Tis a bit hard to bring in real tree branches to demonstrate with. Trouble is, you're both spring chickens, and broms attach better to old, gnarly surfaces...so I will have to coerce some of the elderly, wrinkly members into volunteering! But we'll keep that a secret, so as not to scare them off from offering to assist.

Regards Vriesea vagans - by all accounts it does seem to be a "shy" flowerer. I have two substantial clumps growing epiphytically in my garden. One clump is supposed to be the (slightly) larger form of vagans. It did flower for me once, a while back, when it was an established clump. Unfortunately, I didn't get any photos. I would have been more diligent had I realised the scarcity of such an event. From memory, the inflorescence was similar to that of V. philippo-coburgii, of which it is closely related. Like its cousin, vagans' inflo is quite large in comparison to its leaves, but not quite as colourful as V. p-c.

BTW - when writing names of plants, species names (always Latin) are written in all lower-case lettering (typed formally in italics), versus named cultivars written with upper-case beginning letters, usually with Anglicised names, and formally in single inverted commas. If this rule is followed, additional explanation of the type of plant - be it a species, or species/hybrid cultivar - is unnecessary.
e.g. Vriesea vagans, Aechmea caudata, Billbergia rosea - all species.
Vriesea 'Sunset', Aechmea 'Little Harv', Tillandsia 'Silver Queen' - all distinctive cultivars.

All official plant publications use this consistent rule, as do most gardenwebbers. O.K. - lesson over...you may all go out and play now. :)

K