Australian and New Zealand Gardening: BROMELIADS IN SUMMER ..2014, 2 by splinter1804

splinter1804 wrote:
Hi everyone – Back again; it’s getting too hot to work outside this afternoon so I thought I’d have a break until things cool down a bit later on and in the meantime, pick up when I left off this morning.

Trish – Happy New Year to you and Joe too and I hope you don’t have a bad headache from all the mango wine you drank last night.

You say I identified Brian’s plants for him, just let me correct you a little and say I think I identified them. It's very hard to accurately identify a plant from a picture, especially bromeliads when they are continually going through colour changes.

You make a good point when you advised Brian to wear gloves when using various sprays. It’s good basic advice which I’ve always followed myself and yet I omitted to pass it on in what I wrote. Another thing that’s often overlooked is the directions; especially the safety directions and what to do if you accidently make contact with the particular substance. There are so many different toxic sprays on the market today it becomes quite confusing and you should always wear the recommended personal protective equipment. You may look like the “man on the moon” in some instances, but it is for your own protection.

Looks like I have to stop again as we’ve just had a carload of visitors pull up out the front, so it looks like I’ll have to leave this until the morning when everyone’s still in bed.

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Here it is, the morning of the 2nd Jan and I’m still trying to finish this post. I'm back again without any distractions and hopefully I’ll get it finished with this attempt.

Yesterday I had bit of a change and potted up some Bill. pups a friend had sent me before I injured my hand; since then they have been parked in a box with their bases just touching some damp Coco Peat. When I got them out yesterday I was surprised to see most of them had reasonable new root systems. I potted them up and when I finished I decided to also pot up some Bill. which I had been putting off for some time. They are seedlings from a cross of Hallelujah and Domingos Martins and are just starting to show a bit of colour. Today, it’s back to tidying up a bench in the Neo. shade house and then more Neo re-potting.

Thanks for the pictures of the python and your Water Tractor (What brand was it?) Also the girls enjoying their outing in the car.

I don’t know anything about mobile phone pictures, but you could download them to your computer and then rotate them by using the “Picture Manager” programme in Microsoft Office and then try posting them. I think it was Wendy who had problems trying to post directly from her phone as well when she used to post.

Thanks for identifying the Neo. ‘Grey Nurse’ for me, I should know by now that any nice variegated plants are usually hybrids from Chester Skotak, and it wouldn’t surprise me if the NOID in your picture is another one from the same breeder which someone has simply lost the name from.

Colleen – You say your peace will be shattered when the boys come home from their little holiday, but we all know you can’t wait to see them again and things around your home get back to normal.
I’m sure they’ve had a good time and enjoyed mixing with other kids but I think they will be more pleased to get back home with their Gran and the security of a loving home and their pets.

Pleased to hear that Dianne is OK, and when you speak to her again ask her to drop in and say gooday.

Shirley – Hi Shirley, and happy new year to you as well. As you haven’t been posting as often as you did previously I was wondering if everything’s OK; Is it just a case of being "time poor" during the silly season or have you been unwell and the back’s giving you problems again, if you have, take it easy and get better soon.

Teresa – Happy New Year to you and your family as well. Nice to hear you all had an enjoyable family celebration, we did as well, and as usual New Year’s Eve was very low key, just my wife and I. We’re getting too old to mix it with the young ones these days, and besides my old ears can’t tolerate what the play for music.

You should be quizzing Justine; as they grow some superb orchids and bromeliads in Singapore and who knows, she may just be an enthusiast as well.

It seem that Miss Sugar is in a “win win” position for the show tomorrow, as long as she doesn’t disgrace herself and take off after a cat or some other distraction. Ha! Ha!

Oh to have a neighbour like yours, I would just settle for ones that would keep their weeds in their own yard instead of sharing them with us.

Trish – Hi again, it seems that I’ve finally got to the end of this great Christmas/ New Year post and I seem to have gone the full circle as I started out with you and Joe and here you are back again.

It’s strange how you can look at things without actually seeing them; my Vriesea and Guzmania shade house is between our garage (where I do my re-potting) and the rest of the back-yard and other shade houses. Whenever I re-pot plants I always put them on the floor of this shade house for a couple of days as it’s cool and gives them a chance to recuperate.

I’m in and out of this area every day, and regularly pass through it from the garage to the rest of the yard, yet it was only in the last few days that I noticed just how many Vrieseas and Guzzies are coming into flower. I think when you are familiar with a certain area you don’t notice things as much as you do in other areas. Yesterday, I had a closer look and it suddenly dawned on me that I also have to lots of dead leafing to do on all of the plants in here also, as well as lots of dividing and more re-potting as well. It seems the work is never done, but the good part is that these plants don’t have spines on the leaves to contend with so it will be a nice change.

I’ll finish now with a few more pic’s as usual and hope you will all be recharging your batteries after all the annual celebrations in readiness to post once again tomorrow. The pic’s today show the Vriesea and Guzmania shade house and all of the work that awaits me here.

All the best, Nev.