Bromeliads for the backyard

In my previous post I talked about redoing the bed you see on the right in the photo below:

But why stop there? Let's swing around to the left:

While I didn't do any major renovation here (that was done last year), I've been adding more bromeliads. This includes plants I brought home from the 2019 Bromeliad Summit in Santa Barbara and from Hortlandia.

I'm still not fully confident that these bromeliads are hardy enough to be outside all the time, although those I had were out all winter. But I don't read too much into that, seeing how last winter was so mild.

With the exception of a few aechmeas (Aechmea recurvata var. benrathii and Aechmea gamosepala), all bromeliads are in pots. To make sure they don't dry out too fast, I use black plastic pots—they're fairly easy to hide among the existing in-ground plants (like Carex and Hakonechloa). To gain a bit of extra height, I placed some of them on top of inverted pots.

While I'll continue to make tweaks over time, I'm pretty happy with the way things look right now.

So much color, most of it from foliage

Top left: Neoregelia carcharodon 'Tiger'
Center right: Bilbergia nutans 'Variegata (this one has particularly nice variegation)
Bottom left: Neoregelia chlorosticta

Wider view

The Neoregelia mounted to the chaste tree (Vitex agnus-castus) came from Dick's greenhouse in Portland (see this post on danger garden). It already came mounted on a piece of driftwood. I got the Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides) on eBay; there are lots of sellers in Florida, South Carolina, etc. who harvest it fresh from their property.

  

The white-and-green striped beauty is Guzmania 'Denise'. It will definitely be a houseplant in the winter.

This year's Show and Sale of the Sacramento Bromeliad and Carnivorous Plant Society will be on June 15 and 16. I got some nice plants there last year at terrific prices—a fraction of what you'd pay in a specialty nursery. I'll definitely go back next month!

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