Australian and New Zealand Gardening: Bromeliads for Novices and Addicts - August 2013, 2 by splinter1804

splinter1804 wrote:
Hi everyone – I spent a good part of yesterday watering; everything was so dry after all of the wind and I'm sure the brom's were all smiling at me as I watered them. However it seems that the wind is back as it was blowing pretty well last night so I'm glad I left my “wind shutters” down on the shade shelter.

More work today at the museum as there are a lot of fallen tree branches over there as well so it looks like my old chain saw will get some exercise as well as myself today. We have to get everything nice and tidy as we are having the Tongarra Train Fest on 8th September 2013 as well as one of our old loco's which used to work at the Port Kembla Steelworks is having its 100th birthday, so we've planned a pretty big day.

Cody – I never had an MP3 player when I walked, just a stereo system but it was too heavy to carry so I just whistled instead. How's your “Strine” studies going? Didjabringabeeralong?

Sue – Come on Sue, riding the bike is cheating, why don't you jog along with the dogs?

For a good temperature conversion table go to http://www.temperatureworld.com/ctable1.htm

I have to agree with you Sue, I like 'Camelot' better than 'Gespacho' also, but you can still get some nice colour in 'Gespacho' when grown in good light.

I can understand the elks and stags being OK on the Styrofoam if they are just “buttons” (that's what we call small stag horn and elk horn ferns Cody) however the one I have to remount is quite large (abut 2 feet across). The backing board has rotted away and I was thinking of making a new one and was wondering if covering it with Styrofoam would be as good as a bit of old carpet like I usually use. The carpet just holds a bit of extra moisture which they seem to like but on the other hand, it may be what starts the timber rotting as well so maybe I'll try the styrofoam and see what happens.

I think the 20cm gap you speak of Sue could be due to using a mobile device as you say, maybe the site is set up for mainly PC use. Is it a Lap Top you're using or one of those other new fangled devices which I can't even remember the names of let alone use.

I just posted that link as an example, I haven't even looked past the first few myself, in fact I've never seen that many posted at the same time on any forum before. It seems like the bloke that posted them is giving a tour of his entire collection so I will have a look as you never know what new ideas we might see.

You've certainly done me proud with the 'Galactic Warrior' and it's certainly colouring up much better for you than I can get it to do down here. I love the Oncidium though; when I grew orchids almost all of the Oncidiums were yellow, although I did have one very small pale pink one but never any the colour of yours. We always mounted ours on blocks of Tree Fern fibre and they really grew well, but they were a bit of a pain to divide with the roots all tangled up through the fibre.

Jean – You're really copping a hammering with the cold weather aren't you? I think it's time you did what the birds do and fly north to the warmer weather for a couple of months, I'm sure someone in Northern NSW or Qld. could find some nice relaxing gardening for you to do to keep your hand in.

What you say about Bill.'Fosters Striate' is very true and when grown in the garden it makes up into a beautiful clump in no time and the flowers are really in a nice cluster as well, but as I said to Ian, they do seems to attract soft scale here where I live, but maybe it's too cold for the scale down where you live.

I don't know anything about a 'chantinii rose' but you certainly got it fr a good price. You said you trimmed the leaves to the size shown in the pic, but I'm not getting any pic, just the three pic's of orchids. (Don't tell me I've got the “Gremlins” back in my computer again). Anyway what I meant to say was, if you bought it from someone up north you'd better keep it inside in the warmth during the night until the cold weather has finished as I've found that anything with Chantinii in the breeding hates the cold.

I like the pic's of your orchids; I wish I'd had one the shape of the one in your pic 3 when I was growing them as that was just what the judges looked for, a nice saucer shape and clear colours.

It looks very similar to one that won many shows when I grew orchids which was called (I think) Cymbidium 'Balkis Louth'. My wife (to be) paid twenty pound for a green bulb for me for my 21st birthday and that was a lot of money in those days, but it wasn't wasted as I won the Novice Champion with it the following year (The one and only champion prize I've ever won), so thanks for the memories Jean.

Shirley – That link I posted was to the “Bromeliad Forum” http://www.bromeliadforum.za.net/forum/index.php
of which I have been a member since it was first started by a “break away group” from the Garden Web Forums. It is a much more user friendly site once you have used it for a while and like the Garden Web Forums has "oodles" of information, discussions and pictures. The link I posted showed 38 pic's of a garden belonging to a member and I must admit I still haven't looked at them all yet. Sue said she was able to access it from the link I posted but she may also be a member and maybe only members can open the link. You may have to register as a member to do this so try this link and if it still doesn't work let me know and I'll try and find out why.
http://www.bromeliadforum.za.net/forum/index.php?action=help...

The pic's of your plants of Neo. Gespacho/Gespachio (It's sometimes spelled either way) seem different again to Ian's and mine and all I can say is either it's a much more variable plant than I first suspected or some of our plants are wrongly named. I never would have thought there could be such a change between the pups and the adult plants. The plant I have usually presents as a pup very similar to the one in your first pic and the leaf pattern remains pretty much the same with just the colours altering as the plant matures but it certainly doesn't finish up like the adult plant you have posted. I especially like the plant in your last pic but I do have my doubts if it is 'Gespacho', but then I could be wrong, as I often am. Anyway I'd still like you to put me down for a pup please, if and when you get one. This is proving to be an interesting investigation and it could be more so if some other members would post pic's of their Gespacho plants also, so come on people, don't be shy!

A few more random pic's to finish with today Pic.1 show my wind shutters in the down position and Pic.2 shows the when opened. Pic.3 and 4 show the partly finished bench in the converted vegie garden and Pic.5 shows a few more of the hanging plants in the open area between the two shade houses. When I say open, it's the north wall I'm talking about; it still has the beige shade cloth on the roof.

All the best, Nev.