Paul, you're right - they mostly do take up a lot of space.Paul in Essex wrote:One of the major problems is that many of the xeric bromeliads take up a lot of real estate - they get BIG - and so are not suitable for small greenhouse cultivation. That leaves larger botanical glasshouses or the hardier species to be grown outdoors, of which there are but a few. That said I believe they make very interesting, architectural and, when flowering, beautiful additions to the xeric garden.
For the record, I have grown these outside since before the recent big freezes:
Fascicularia bicolor ssp bicolor
Fascicularia bicolor ssp canaliculata
Fascicularia litoralis (invalid name but, at the least, a different form of ssp bicolor)
Ochagavia carnea
Ochagavia litoralis (different to the Fascicularia above)
Greigia sphacelata
Puya spathacea
Puya alpestris
Puya caerulea
Puya hybrid bought as berteroana but most likely a cross with P. chilensis, given the flower colour
Puya unknown sp x2 - both doing very well!
Aechmea recurvata and some of its varieties.
Dyckia fosteriana
Dyckia 'Morris Hobbs'
Dyckia velascana
Hechtia glomerata
Deuterochonia (Abromeitiella) brevifolia
Billbergia nutans - not strictly a xeric but more epiphyte.
I have planted a few more puyas, dyckias et al recently which are starting to grow away nicely due to last year's non-existent winter.
Prior to the big freeze I tried anything up to another 20 or so taxa which all bit the dust.
I saw what I thought was Hechtia texensis in Texas last June, but I'm now not so sure about this. When I've time I'll look into this and also search my Texan pics.
