Australian and New Zealand Gardening: BROMELIADS IN SUMMER ..2014, 2 by bromishy

bromishy wrote:
Hi Everyone!

The New Year is just around the corner so I did not want the day to pass without saying a BIG HAPPY NEW YEAR to all my WONDERFUL BROM BUDDIES!!!

Brian great to hear you had a lovely time at your daughters place opening presents with your grandson, sure that would have been enjoyable to see the look upon his face. What a cute Christmas present from you grandson, looks like you have an artist in the family,

Hope you got some rain too when it looked like it was going to; we really need it here and pretty much all of today was overcast with rain clouds coming close to us as well as storms but looks like it missed us again as we only got a couple of drops here and there and then it was all gone.

My Peking Duck Rolls are a real hit whenever I make them and I seem to be making it a lot of late due to popular demand amongst my friends and family who can’t get enough of them he he.

Lovely brom pictures you posted, looks like Nev has kindly identified the one’s you were not sure about so that’s great to see.

Have fun with the worm farm, we want to get one down the track to make work tea for our herb garden.

Brian the white substance on your Vriesea’s I believe is fungal matter and can be treated with a fungal treatment such as Mancazeb which is safe to use on all bromeliads, just follow directions carefully and wear gloves when using. The white spots on your second pic appear to be scale and again you can treat your broms for this too with different pesticides for sale out there, I mainly use Confidor for severe cases of black and white scale. Look at possibly increasing the airflow around your Vriesea’s for the fungal once you have treated your broms and space them out a little more to help if you have them all close together so the fungus does not spread as easily spread by brom leaves rubbing or carried by wind onto other surrounding plants and it spreads from there.

Nev pleased to hear you are Kicking Butt in the re-potting department. I too have been cleaning broms and repotting them these past couple of days and have only really made a small dint out of my entire collection but at least it’s a good start and in the process it’s giving me time to totally unwind in the garden and get a bit of fresh air etc. I am only about a quarter of the way working through my collection and am gob smacked at how many pups I am discovering on all the broms, way many than I had expected so I am potting up what I can and getting some ready for the next market I will be holding later next year in 2015.

I have not heard from Dianne and hope she’s well and that her arm is healing well.

Thanks for the Happy Birthday wishes to Joe, he had a lovely day celebrated at home with close friends and me and he did bring one of his favourite Phap. ‘Saint Swithen’ Orchids in to display and show everyone the seven stunning flowers that had recently opened.

Attached are some pics of the Scrub Python I recently wrestled to share with everyone; not that big only approximately two years old with a lot more growing to do yet.

I have also attached pictures Joe took of the Water Tractor (finally) and the little black ramp you place at the end where you want the tractor to stop where the water will cut off as soon as it reaches the ramp.

Pleased to hear you liked the picture of the girls crashed out on our couch after too much partying he he. They are like our children and our lives would not be the same without them as they bring to us much joy and unconditional luv and we can’t help but spoil the little buggers rotten because they don’t ask for much and bring us so much joy.

HA HA the next time Joe cooks a Turducken (Turkey, Duck, Chicken) all rolled into one I will say “Thanks for cooking the Duck Turd honey it tastes fantastic” and see what reaction I get LOL.

Let me see what I can do with these pictures off my phone that save wrong as I am sure the recent one’s Joe just uploaded for me today will do the same thing possibly so let’s see how I go?

Pleased to hear you liked the picture of Joe’s Phrag’ orchid, isn’t it a pretty colour, it’s one of his favourites as each year he takes pics of it and the blooms and growths are improving every year so it is very impressive when it does flower and the flower spike is very tall.

I think the Neo. with green margins you asked about in Pic 5 from 27/12 is I believe ‘Gray Nurse’ with only a slight hint of colour at the moment. I remember the last time I posted a close up picture of this one in colour some time ago some people on this forum thought it did not look like ‘Gray Nurse’ but could not identify it for me.

Lovely pictures you posted of Neo. ‘Rain Cloud’ such a gritty colour and all of those lovely Vrieseas of Peter Coyle’s new hybrids – thanks for sharing with all of us. Your Grandson’s Masterpiece is my favourite of all and well worth hanging on your wall for sure with all that amazing happy colour and how great that you admire it so much that you have hang it up to enjoy every day.

Great pictures of your recently potted broms showing wonderful colour as well as the one’s you say could have some potential, they sure look like they will grow up to be stunners with all that great shape and colour.

Jean pleased to hear you get some nice rain, your broms will luv it as well as all the other beautiful plants you have growing. Yum I luv apricots and how great that you have your own tree in your back yard; are you going to make any jam or would you prefer just eating them fresh every day; fresh is best but at least if there is too much fruit you can preserve some to enjoy later.

Lovely pics you posted of Ae. ‘La Tigra’ in flower, aren’t the flowers stunning and you are so right even when the plant is not in flower the plant’s stunning. And your Vriesea’s in flower look stunning as well as how beautiful and large does that apricot tree look very healthy looking indeed.

Nice to hear you visited Robert over Christmas and hope the little flowers you liked so much were all out in full bloom on the hill for you to enjoy.

Ha ha Colleen it’s not Easter yet what are you doing chasing rabbits around the yard for 2 hours, quick little buggers they are aren’t they but so cute never the ness.

Great to hear the boys are having fun, wait till you tell them the rabbit story sure they will have a great chuckle at your expense LOL.

Time to attach some pics…let’s see what I can find.

HAPPY NEW YEAR MY BEAUTIFUL BROM BUDDIES and I look forward to speaking with you all in 2015!!!

Take Care & Happy Gardening!

Trish

I think my pics from my phone do not attach properly because not compatible with DG program possibly as I save them right but it appears to make no difference except pic 2 came out ok this time so now I am totally confused. No matter what I try it's an issue uploading these pics to DG?

Pic 1 - Scrub Python I wrestled
Pic 2 - Girls with wind in their hair
Pic 3 & 4 - Water Tractor for Nev
Pic 5 - Neo. NOID - adore this one