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

splinter1804 wrote:
Hi everyone, a bit of a change in the weather this morning and the rain is back with us once again. It looks like I’ll have to spend the day on the computer doing a job I’ve been putting off “forever”, and that is, getting an up to date list of my brom’s together.

Shirley – I’ll bet you’re looking forward to visiting Wendy and Johnny on Friday. There’s nothing as good as visiting other “brom people” and discussing plants with each other. It’s even better when there are plants to buy as well so best you break open the “Piggy Bank” before you go.

That’s a great example of a well grown Neo ‘Manoa Beauty’ you have posted. It’s a beautiful plant and extremely well grown. Whatever you’re doing to your plants, keep doing it as that’s a great example of this particular plant.

Colleen – Yes, I guess like me you will just have to "wish" that you could go to Wendy and Johnny’s with Shirley.

I’m sure you have enough imagination to find a place to put your tiered stand, and while you’re doing it your mind will be thinking of how you can create more space for the next lot of plants.

I hope the weather turns out OK for you for the Sunday BBQ and I’m sure the boys will have a great time and won’t want to leave. You may even be able to convert a few of your friends to brom growing, who knows?

Wendy – If you’re going to go into the tree felling business, you must follow rule No.1 and that is never use a chain saw or any other means to cut down a tree in the wind, it can be extremely dangerous and in some cases even fatal! But then I expect it would be no different if my brom’s were threatened by the possibility of a falling branch either. I hope you haven’t upset your neighbour too much by cutting down his tree, but then it’s possible he didn’t know how dangerous it was unless he looked at it from your side of the fence.

I had a neighbour who has now move but still owns the house next door. He and his wife are lovely people but have absolutely no garden sense whatsoever and they have every noxious weed in Australia growing in their yard. Now that they have moved away these things are taking over and now they’re coming into my yard as well so I expect I’ll have to have a word to him when I see them next.

I’ll look forward to seeing the pictures of your Vr. Hula Girl plants, but please don’t get me wrong about what I said yesterday, I wasn’t questioning what you said regarding the pot sizes, I was just making the point that pups grow roots quicker down here if they are grown in a smaller pot. Different climatic conditions require different cultures and what works for you doesn’t necessarily work for me.

Re. You Till. ‘Whiskey’, sorry I can’t help as I’ve never heard of it and I suspect that's because the name isn’t registered, it may just be a grower’s ‘pet name’. I’ve had a similar thing happen to me three years in a row with a Till someone gave me. This particular plant seems to attract "Katydids" and although the plants on either side can be in flower at the same time, they never seem to get eaten. I never knew what the culprit was until Jack Koning told me what he thought it was and I should go out and have a look at about 9.00 o’clock at night, and sure enough there they were, all three of them having a little “chewing party”. For anyone here who hasn’t seen one of these little “rodents”, I’m posting a pic so you know what to look for. Size wise they are about 2 inches long and have a flatter body than a grass hopper.

Your Aechmea ‘Shining Light’ really looks nice, I have a couple but unfortunately they don’t look anywhere near as nice as yours do as mine suffer terribly when the cold weather hits us and they finish up with spotting from the cold all over their leaves.

I’ll finish now with a pic of a "Katydid" as promised, it is on a finger to give an idea of the size. After this are the final few of Chanin’s pic’s from Thailand; and this time they are of some Aechmeas in the same Bromeliad Show as I posted yesterday.


All the best, Nev.