ardesia said:Whoa, I need sun glasses to look at that one.

No sun glasses need for this dark Neoregelia.

🖤 N. 'Pitch Black' 🖤

Good name for it. Bet that is striking when it is in bloom, the flowers would just pop against that patent leather black.

sunkissed said:
@ScotTi nice bloom, I have two nice fully grown offsets from a couple years ago, I think mine bloomed the same time yours did, I keep checking them, but don't see anything yet. Sun did shine good the last few days, so maybe that will encourage them.

Last flowering was Summer 2019. Produced 2 offsets but only the one is flowering. Hopefully the other offset will wait to put on its flower show next Summer. 🤞
Mac enjoying the flower show in the dog days of Summer.

Lubbers have been quite abundant in the garden since the middle of June.

Damage to my Cordylines, Jasmine and Crinums have been bad.





Requiring a daily hunt for removal. So far they have not made a meal of any of the Bromeliads.

To the people who asked I do have a greenhouse that I keep my bromeliads in over winter. My husband wrangles the Blanchetianias onto a shelf in the back. I have a lot of tropicals I store inside as well.

Looks good.

Nice greenhouse Sammy

Scott, I do like the black Neo
The Lubbers are so bad here, I killed a lot in the Spring when they were nymphs, but still finding adults in the garden now. They do love my Crinum lily, they sample the bromeliads enough to do some leaf damage and then move on to something else. One thing they never damage is my Crotons, thank goodness.
This was one leaf on my Crinum lily one night damage. ugh. The whole plant looks terrible now, we went away for a few days and came home to two Lubbers having a dinner party on it.


Luckily they don't nibble on my Aechmea tayoensis close by, there is two plants mom and offset in this pot, still no flower as of yet.

Sherri, the edges on your A. tayoensis look smooth, the ones I have seen in other photos look like razor blades. What does yours feel like? The leaves on this one look dangerous. https://www.gabriellaplants.co...
Are you familiar with that grower? They are located in Oviedo.

sunkissed said:Nice greenhouse Sammy

Scott, I do like the black Neo
The Lubbers are so bad here, I killed a lot in the Spring when they were nymphs, but still finding adults in the garden now. They do love my Crinum lily, they sample the bromeliads enough to do some leaf damage and then move on to something else. One thing they never damage is my Crotons, thank goodness.
This was one leaf on my Crinum lily one night damage. ugh. The whole plant looks terrible now, we went away for a few days and came home to two Lubbers having a dinner party on it.


Luckily they don't nibble on my Aechmea tayoensis close by, there is two plants mom and offset in this pot, still no flower as of yet.

Sherrie how hardy is your tayoensis? I have often thought about planting some of mine out but would like to hear first hand experience about what temps they have survived

Alice, My A tayoensis has dangerous spines along the red petiole of the leaf.
The green leaf blade has much much smaller spines along the leaf edges.

Thanks, they do look evil. Such a beautiful plant though, .

@ardesia they definitely ARE evil. So hard to move around and they get so large. That's why I have been thinking about planting a few out.

ardesia said:Sherri, the edges on your A. tayoensis look smooth, the ones I have seen in other photos look like razor blades. What does yours feel like? The leaves on this one look dangerous. https://www.gabriellaplants.co...
Are you familiar with that grower? They are located in Oviedo.

Yes Gabriel nursery is just up the road from me, mostly houseplant type plants, just lately they've added some bromeliads. The A. tayoensis has very fine spines, I would not call them razor sharp, doesn't bite like other plants, just rub it the right way . By the way the Lubbers found it and ate one of the top leaves up pretty good, I guess I jinxed myself.

Gina1960 said:

Sherrie how hardy is your tayoensis? I have often thought about planting some of mine out but would like to hear first hand experience about what temps they have survived

Gina, it is not as cold hardy as most bromeliads, the leaves are much more delicate. Mine has endured temps in the mid to upper 30's for a good 8 plus hours, just shoved up under podocarpus trees. The bottom leaves will turn yellow and fall off in the Spring if we get too much cold. I do throw an additional protective frost cloth cover on it if we go down to freezing, which has only been a few times. This probably would suffer a lot of damage if too many hours below 32F.

Thanks Sherri, I guess I will be dragging my biggest mama in again this winter if it goes in the 30's.

ScotTi said:Alice, My A tayoensis has dangerous spines along the red petiole of the leaf.
The green leaf blade has much much smaller spines along the leaf edges.

Nics picture Scott. I missed seeing it posted.

Just looked out the window and something did not look right in a bed of neo's around the base of a tree. DH and I were just commenting on how well they had recovered from an attack by hungry deer over the winter. Uh oh, now it appears that an armadillo has chosen to uproot some of them.

Geez, always something, at least they're easy to plant back in the ground. I get an armadillo in my garden, but it has never uprooted any plants. The raccoons check them out from what I can see on the security cam, they might be the ones eating the small new offsets. I didn't know deer like them, but do know rats and Lubber grasshoppers have done their share of destruction.

There were deep holes like the 'dillos make all around. Guess it could have been something else but I do not think raccoons dig like the 'dillos do. DH re-planted them and said it did not appear anything had munched on them, just dug looking for "buried treasure." The deer only got to them once, it was probably a fawn that did not know any better.

Seems we continued July, well into August on this one so I started a new thread for September here:
The thread "Bromeliads, September 2021" in Bromeliads forum