Most
everyone has some kind of hobby(ies) that interests them and brings them pleasure in their spare time between work and time
with family and friends. Few get so interested in a particular hobby however,
that they become a world renowned expert. But Herbert Plever is not your ordinary
fellow with an ordinary hobby. Now a retired attorney, he has cultivated rare
and exotic bromeliads from his urban apartment in New York for more than 50 years. He is the editor of Bromeliana, the official
publication of the New York Bromeliad Society and he has been invited all over the world to talk about his collection.
So just what is a bromeliad,
anyway? Bromeliads are a family of tropical flowering plants that have over 3000 individual and unique species. Some of the more common varieties resemble the spiny leaves of a pineapple while other types are wispy
and fragile looking things that attach themselves to the bark of trees and don’t require any soil at all.
Outside of tropical rain forests these plants were rare and hard to find when Mr. Plever first began to get interested
but nowadays they are quite common – popular enough that you are likely to find some of the more common varieties at
your local Home Depot or supermarket. As it turns out some varieties are relatively
hardy – strong enough to survive the less than ideal conditions and treatment doled out by yours truly. In fact, the very definition of a hardy plant is one that can survive in my house.
The apartment that Mr. Plever and his wife Sylvia share in Rochdale Village, Jamaica, N.Y. is hardly the place
you’d think to find a veritable jungle of tropical plants. But grow lights,
humidifiers, weekly soakings in the
