Breeder News

It took plant breeder Robert Larnach 16 years to develop a vriesea with glossy leaves the colour of a rich Barossa shiraz. He started with a plant that was all green, so the ruby-leaved gems sitting next to the originals look like the result of a magic spell. Larnach will tell you there’s no special incantation or shortcut, just lots of thinking, attention to detail and patience. It took plant breeder Robert Larnach 16 years to develop a vriesea with glossy leaves the colour of a rich Barossa shiraz.Credit:Robin Powell Vrieseas are bromeliads, a group of plants encompassing some 3500 species, mostly from Central and South America. They live across such diverse landscapes and climates that there is one to suit every need. But in 2000, when the Larnach family shifted their nursery business focus from indoor plants to bromeliads, fellow nursery people scoffed. “They said we were crazy, that we’d never make a living out of broms because they just weren’t popular enough,” recalls Robert’s son, Jamie, a former cabinetmaker now full-time in the family business, Bromeliads Australia. The joke was on the pundits as broms took off: in domestic and commercial interiors; as part of green walls; in contemporary sculptural planting designs and in low-maintenance gardens. Even non-gardeners were hooked. The most black-thumbed among us can keep a brom alive as they can be ignored for months without serious consequences. That’s because they are epiphytes that hang out in the trees in their original homes, getting food and water only from whatever falls into the well of the plant. The roots provide a nutrient top-up but their main purpose is simply to anchor the plant. To upgrade brom health from surviving to thriving, simply treat them well. Keep them under-watered rather than overwatered, and give foliar feeds through the cooler months of the year. Skip the feeds over summer as nutrient-rich water sitting in the well of the plant during hot weather can result in algal blooms that stain the leaves. Once the plant flowers and sets seed, it will die and new pups will appear at […]

Source: www.smh.com.au