Australian and New Zealand Gardening: BROMELIADS FOR NOVICES & ADDICTS MARCH 2012, 3 by splinter1804

splinter1804 wrote:
Good morning everyone,

Colleen – That’s a very interesting looking corner of the yard in your pic, but it probably needs continuous work to keep it up to speed so why not rip it all out and make a nice big shade house and just fill it up with brom’s? I like the nice apricot/peach colour of your Brugmansia, I’d really like to have a Neo that colour; wouldn’t it look great?

Jean – I think Thailand would be a bit like Bali, OK for a holiday, but not really a good place to live after living here in the best country in the world (I know I’m “one eyed”) but I have been overseas four times now so I know what I’m talking about; I’ve been to Bali, Tasmania, Kangaroo Island, and Stradbroke Island........ Ha! Ha!

They do have beautiful gardens though and not just brom’s. Apparently the King of Thailand loves flowers and the people love him; so everyone goes out of their way to make the place look beautiful. The pic’s I’ve been showing are just of the bromeliad section which although it is in massive shade house; it is just one tiny part of the whole gardens. To see the gardens in their entirety you need to look at the 12 or so pages of pic’s at: http://www.google.com.au/search?q=nong nooch tropical garden... They are well worth a visit and real “eye openers”.

You say your brom’s are growing and putting up pups; I hear the same story from everyone I speak to. I personally have never seen such a year for pups in my own collection and I put it down to the “magic stuff” in all the rain we’ve been having; it’s a pity we can’t bottle it.

Karen – I agree with you about the height of the shade house in the pic's I've been posting, I know the experts always tell us to make our shade house roofs as high as possible for the best results, but the Thai people really take them literally and I believe this one is thirty five feet high in one place and fifty feet in another, and that’s a high shade house!

Just because you have clay soil is no reason for not having a nice garden; I remember years ago when my brother first got married and built a house at Seven Hills in NSW, the soil was like concrete. It was just hard packed clay which after about three drought years had become virtually impossible to dig, in fact the builder's labourers were breaking pick handles digging the footings (the good old days when things were done by hand). But after twelve months of painstaking work, a little at a time and many many ute loads of wood shavings and fowl manure dug into it (there were a lot of poultry farms in that area then and they gladly gave you the chook poop free just to get rid of it). He just kept digging and turning it over and added some lime and gypsum as well until he finally finished up with a good fertile vegetable garden in the back yard and a wonderful show of exhibition Dahlias second to none in the front yard.

Another option which doesn’t require as much work is to build the beds on top of the hard stuff with a timber surround (such as old railway sleepers or bits of trees) to contain the soil (which you would have to bring in from a garden centre) but it isn’t as expensive as it sounds because when you buy garden soil in bulk it’s really quite reasonably priced and you can do a little bit at a time.

Shirley – Glad to see you back again and I hope you had a good time. I’m pleased my order for fine weather was partly filled at least.

The first of your pic's looks identical to what we know as South Beach here in Shellharbour and as for your “kids” playing; ..... Well I can remember the same thing on South Beach before we were married when our two dogs used to do the same thing. We had a black and white dog called “Whiskey” that would try and eat the white foam on the water and another little brown dog called “Bonnie” who would just stand in the water up to the top of her shoulders until the last of a wave would come in and then she would face the shore and swim like buggery and “body surf” in and onto the sand.

Although not really my “thing” I think the Cacti look great, but in my opinion the star of the show is the amazing elephant made from terracotta flower pots, very imaginative and most unusual!

Wendy – Good to see you and Johnny back safe and sound, now you can put your feet up for bit and relax before you get stuck into your plants again, and I’m pleased that Emily’s “Brians” have both found good homes.

Yes I had also wondered about the Crypts (by the way Crypt. 'Lee Rey' was the name) and watering, and thought maybe an automatic irrigation system; but I’ve since been told that everything is hand watered as required, which isn’t very often due to the high humidity.

That’s a nice collection of Vrieseas to come home to isn’t it? Richard’s breeding some nice stuff and I remember way back when he first started posting pic’s on the forum of his little seedlings and I told him he would need to extend his shade house in the future. From what I’ve heard about his set up I’m now sure he definitely would have needed to. I wouldn’t worry too much about Paul’s Vrieseas being in the mail over the weekend as I’ve found that they travel the best of all brom’s, even though they look like they wouldn’t, and a soak in the "magic sugar mix" will certainly "pep" them up.

That’s it for another day and I’ll finish with a few more of Chanin’s pic’s of the Noong Nooch Gardens.

All the best, Nev.