Australian and New Zealand Gardening: LOOKING FOR SPRING..... BROMELIADS 2015, 3 by splinter1804

splinter1804 wrote:
Hi everyone – Another cold morning (by Shellharbour standards anyway), but hopefully once the sun warms up it will be more comfortable.

We’re going over to have a look at the new Masters store today and I’ll start comparing products and prices with Bunnings. It’s supposed to be 75% larger than Bunnings so I’ll probably have to hire a horse to get around as I can’t see myself walking that far. I’m particularly interested in a product they have advertised which is Searles 5 in 1 Organic Plant Food and is in 30 litre bags for $7.98 containing sheep and cow manure.

Teresa – It’s great to hear you like your new job, and I expect it will only get easier once you get used to everything, including the travelling.

As for the Ae. fasciata, there are many different types around now and for a while I thought of collecting a few more, but the amount of cold damage I’m getting with them this year, I’m now having second thoughts.

I hope Miss Sugar is OK and not getting a UTI, so maybe best get her to the vet and nip it in the bud.

Jean – I usually use any fertilisers at the rate recommended by the manufacturer; the only exception is that if I’m going to use it more often, such as in the case of seedlings in which case I follow the advice of the “old timers” where they always recommended “little and often”.

If the instructions said to use 10gm per 10 litres and apply it monthly, the oldies always said it was better to apply it ¼ strength (2.5gm per 10 litres) and apply it weekly; in other words Apply it Weakly Weekly. I tried this method over the whole year a few years back and I must say the results did appear to be better than when using it at the recommended time and rate. The only downside is that it did require more work.

I have to agree with you about the technician; good ones are few and far between, but isn’t it great when we get a good one? The last time we had computer problems I rang up a bloke we hadn’t used before and he’s now gone to the top of our list. He said right up front that all work was usually done in your own home and the charge was $60 for a service call less 20% for pensioners.

This included the call out fee and one hour’s work, i.e. if the problem was fixed within 15 minutes he used the remaining time to “tune up” your computer, answer questions or offer any tuition you may want. It turned out that our problem was easily rectified and we both had a very informative lesson and what’s more he taught us according to the level of knowledge we had (which isn’t much) but more importantly he was very patient and explained things in terms we both easily understood.

He said that he previously worked for a computer repair company who ripped off customers left right and centre often charging for two or three hours work when the problem had been fixed with a couple of key strokes and that’s why he decided to work alone from his home.

What’s more he said that most computer problems are easily fixed and some can even be sorted out “over the phone” and said to ring him any time and it may save us a service fee. Well I have rug him on two occasions now and twice he fixed the problem over the phone and no charge to us. Personally I think he’s “God’s Gift to Computer Illiterates” (like me) and I’ve recommended him to several of our friends which gave him a bit more work and he even rang to thank me for recommending him.

Time to go, Gooday Trish and Brian, I hope everything’s OK with you as well.

I’ll finish with a few more random brom pictures Pic.1 is Canistropsis ‘Plum’ x Canistropsis seidelii, Pic.2 Canistropsis ‘Sugar Fig’, Pic.3 is Orthophytum saxicola, Pic.4 Quesnelia liboniana and Pic.4 is Fosterella spectabilis.

All the best, Nev.

I don't know what happened, but I’ve just realised that I forgot to post this morning, so before I do, I can give you a brief report on how we found our new Masters store.

Basically, to sum it up, I thought Masters was a bit disappointing (from what I saw of it anyway). It’s an enormous store but we only did over the garden department and personally everything seems more expensive than Bunnings from what I saw. What’s more the Brunnings orchid compost that I had previously been told that Masters now had the sole monopoly on wasn’t even in stock, and the Searles 5 in 1 Organic Plant Food which was advertised on special was all gone, so a bit of a downer after all the hype. The staff were friendly enough but didn’t have much of an idea about gardening, and finally they had some really nice looking Guzmanias in flower for $28.95 and they were the same size and quality as the ones Bunnings had for $19.95 last Saturday.