Great post - very interesting to see the ones John West rejects as well as those accepted. #3 is nice and I like #4 and #5 as the crazy cross-hatching (technical term, I know) stands out nicely against the background leaf colour)

cheers
Kristan

Thank you very much for showing me these, Jack!
Very interesting to note the differences/sameness amongst them. It also shows me that breeding with these foliage Vrieseas, gives you hardly a real ugly one - and I'm talking about ordinary people, not conoisseurs now. Foliage Vrieseas are still very rare here in South Africa, so if any of those 'rejections' of yours will be given to a Garden Centre, they will be grabbed up as soon as they land on the shelves! And for me as a 'Garden Maid', it will work excellent to use them in mass planting in gardens and so get the uninitiated bitten by the brom-bug!

I will have a fenstralis flowering soon and have a fosteriana var seideliana flowering at the moment. So this morning I picked the pollen to store for when they might be needed later. And in the process, I spilled a lot of pollen on the stigma so I might even get 'selfs'! I wish Neo's had pollen like that - loads of them! When is the best time to pollinate fosteriana and fenestralis? Is it ok to do it in the morning when I get up, or must it rather be done shortly after the flower opens during the night? The flower looked still very fresh 08h00 this morning.

One more question. These plants in the pictures above, how old are they?

Japie

Hi Japie ,true if you pick the parents you hardly get a 'ugly' one,part of that is due to the standard shape of the Vrieseas ,the plants in question are about 6 years old ,with a high Fenestralis influence ,these are better grown warm in our winter,or you get damage to leaf tips (due to cold)these have spend all their life outside ,and in winter i can get frosts in my back yard ( everything gets same treatment here) Years ago any of the 'rejects' would have been show winners ,but the fickle finger of the hybridizer moves on ,the best time to pollinate is a couple of hours after the flower has first opened ,but while ever the pollen is like flour and the stigma is still wet ? its okay ,do any of your crossings both ways as sometimes it works better one way than the other ,do grow any of the 'selfs' of the Vr.fost'seideliana' you will get a small variation and some are very much better ( as was in the Fosteriana posting i did) and do remember Jabie ,selfing a good hybrid pays dividends .also for further crossings ,the traits of the selfed plants are much stronger that the original ,so use the best of the selfings only ok ? some of the species we use have hidden traits that can only be 'unlocked' this way ( experience counts ) and so you have to encourage the plant to do so (as Lisa said ,its like breeding with zonated Neo's) much as any hybridist like's to keep a few secrets ,we must pass knowledge on ,why take it to your grave ? Maybe i should move to South Africa Japie ? i wonder how hard it would be to get all my plants in ? i trust this has helped a bit ,but ask away my friend.
Jack

Jack, you are most welcome to come here with all your plants - think of all the nice things that will be available here then for us! But I do not think the Aussies will let you go that easily.

Bringing plants in here is sometimes a joke - very stern rules and regulations and at the same time, very easy. When I applied for a permit to import plants from Michael, I got the permit easily and quickly. But the list of things that needed to be be specified on the Phyto that the plants are free of, was a mile long and Michael's Phyto officer, could not comply. He gave me a hint and said I must ask for a permit to import, not plants, but plant propogation material. I did so and got the permit that specified that the plant material just had to be sprayed with a general insecticide!

All the answers you gave, make a lot of sense and I take note. But as I move along, I am sure there will still be a lot of questions keep on popping up, so when the time comes, I will ask away! Thanks.

Japie

I agree with your earlier comments Japie, I wouldn't mind those 'scraps'! Makes a tough spot for bromeliad lovers; is there any reason not to keep good plants like that even if there aren't 'worth' registering (to prevent an even larger volume of names to wade through)? As a gardener, I would love to have a variety of plants and don't necessarily care what their names are. Of course I also love being able to order a beautiful plant that I see and hear about here on the forum and know what it is going to look like when I get it.
-andy

Hi Andy, the scraps sometimes get sold of under their formula name ( means someone else will give them a name ) and i keep a lot as they just become a favorite even if not the ' best' its difficult and some times you have to grow the same plant in a different aspect to get the best out of it.the plants that go in the recycle bin have nothing going for them ,thats why they go there.but i do not consider the ones i posted as total rejects, they do show some potential for further breeding and if selfed there will be some good things ,the striped plants wll produce some very definite superior stripes ,and # 3 will produce plants like the 'Kakadu Forest' and could do a 'Melissa Dilling' type as well, the last 2 would produce a few pinks ,you have to look outside the square . Cheers
Jack

Ok, that's good Jack. Makes me feel a lot better that they aren't getting tossed out. Although that doesn't help me from being jealous of not having some of those beauties!
-andy