Australian and New Zealand Gardening: BROMELIADS FOR NOVICES & ADDICTS MARCH 2012, 2 by splinter1804

splinter1804 wrote:
Hi everyone,

Well the rain finally stopped at about half past twelve yesterday, thirty minutes after the end of our garage sale which only went from 7.00 til 12.00. It poured rain pretty solidly the whole time and would you believe there were still people coming to see what we had, even in the pouring rain. One bloke was sticking his head over the gate at six in the morning (with a torch) wanting to know could he come in and have a look then. I know from past experience that these people only come to buy stuff that they can take to the Dapto Markets the next day and re-sell and I said to him that we had advertised a seven o’clock start and that’s when the gates would open otherwise it wasn’t fair to people who came at the right time. He accepted this but still wasn’t very happy about it.

Everything that was on tables and we had planned to position around the yard had to be pushed into a gazebo and one corner of the garage out of the rain which was less than useless as access wasn’t easy; I had the brom’s on a couple of large tables beneath a large shade cloth roof and fortunately the rain didn’t hurt them, in fact it made them look even better, but there weren’t many people and I only sold less than a hundred dollars worth and my daughter sold about three hundred dollars worth of her stuff. So better than nothing I suppose but not much when you think of how it could have been without the rain.

Kristi – Yes I think that woman must have got the message even though she did seem a “bit thick” to have dobbed herself in like that, but she didn’t reply and another bloke had a go at her after me as well, so hopefully she will think twice before she does it again.

Thanks for explaining about the snake, it seems like they would be a very good, interesting non-venomous pet for someone to keep who was that way inclined; however, I’m not one of them. I treat all dangerous animals and reptiles the same and don’t try to interfere with them as I’ve found that the dangerous ones only seems to want to bite you if you are seen as a threat. Pretty well all snake and spider bites are caused when someone either steps on them, is trying to catch them or trying to kill them and I’ve found if you leave them alone they will leave you alone, obviously like Kristi says, if they are threatening you, your children or pets, that’s a different thing and you have to kill them; even though in Australia it is illegal.

Karen – I don’t know a lot about grass pups, but I have learned that if you leave them for too long they just seem to whither up and die and that’s why they are usually taken off early. I have some info. about them somewhere and I’ll try and find it and email it to you (and anyone else who would like it as well). I would personally leave them until they are at least 2” high, but then being in Brisbane, your temperatures would be warmer than ours and you could probably get away with removing them smaller. I have also found that their roots seem to go around the mother plant rather than down into the mix so you need to be careful not do break them when removing the pups.

Wendy – Sorry to hear about your Dad, but you can take some comfort from the fact that he will know when you are there talking to him and he can still hear you. A doctor once told me that a person’s sense of hearing is the last sense to stop working; that’s why when I worked in the ambulance we were always taught not to discuss an unconscious patient’s condition within earshot of them as they could still hear you and it could aggravate their condition even more.

Colleen – Good to hear you at least are getting nice weather to make your brom’s grow. Four pups on your Predator uh!, been bumping up the fertilizer a bit, have you? I know that if you increase the fertilizer to your old Mother plants they will often produce multiple pups; this is an old nurseryman’s trick. I tried it once on an old Neo Nobel Descent Mother plant and she produced eight pups all at the same time; I have also done it on Aechmeas and Vriesea ospinae with similar results, so it does work.

That’s about it for today’s news, and now a few pic’s No. 1. Aechmea Nudicaulis Flava- marginata, No. 2. Neoregelia ‘Knockout’, No. 3, Neoregelia ‘Cheery day’, No. 4. Neoregelia Painted Lady (sport) x Ferny Grove (seedling) and No. 5. Neoregelia Noble Descent Too.

All the best, Nev.