Well, I do grow both Billbergia 'Kyoto' and Aechmea comata var. makoyana. I also grow the variegated form of Bill. amoena var. stolonifera, which Lisa also suggested as a possibility for the first brom photographed. All forms of B. amoena v. stolonifera are distinctive for their bright red bracts, versus the usual pink, and its stoloniferous growth habit. Kyoto is an albomarginated cultivar of Bill. pyramidalis - from Japanese tissue culture I believe. It looks just like the usual green-leaved pyramidalis, except for the white margins - and my Kyoto has a slightly less-dense inflorescence than the usual form. I don't grow it very well, as it does not like my coolish winters - and I grow it in the landscape. Here is a photo of one of mine. Aechmea comata var. makoyana is a larger plant, with stiff, pointed leaves, heavily variegated. As the seller on eBay described, its pups are notoriously very pink - in fact mine have a distinct pink tinge until about half grown. Here are a couple of photos of mine - the first one with its inflorescence fully extended, but finished flowering. See the lovely pink pup? The second one in full flower. It is very cold-resistant, versus the billbergia. I hope these show the visual differences clearly. Cheers, Kerry

Thank you thank you. I have printed your directions and will try them later. I have to run out to play tour guide soon.

***update*** if anyone cares... My contractor patched a couple of particularly low sections & had a stone restoration guy come in to sand it down. They sanded it wet starting with a 50 grit & went over it two more times with higher grits. I don't know what the final grit was, but they used honing powder when they sanded the final time. The floors are much flatter; it feels like any normal tile floor, except for the edges, where they sort of "feathered" out the sanding toward the border, which didn't really need to be sanded. The only caveat is that, upon close inspection, there are fine scratches on all the tiles. Either the 50 grit was too aggressive to begin with, or they didn't hone it enough at the end. That is a little disappointing, considering that it is a brand new floor (and we are a barefoot kind of family, so it probably never would have happened on its own), but I guess I have to cut my losses at some point, and move on with my life.... Many thanks to bill and mongo for your invaluable input. ...will post pics when the chandelier is hung!

Thank you, Cath. Understood. Hopefully if we leave more on it now, even with the potential of losing some due to the cold, it will emerge larger on the other side. I've been trying to generate appropriate material for demonstrations and this just isn't the right set of conditions for wrapping and budding with the dropping temps and reducing light quality is miffy at best. If the material is available when they are better, I'd rather now waste it, our time, energy and postage. Preparing them is so easy, you'll probably feel, "that's IT?" Happy Thanksgiving!