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

splinter1804 wrote:
Hi everyone – It's a nice day here today and if this is a sample of what the spring weather is going to be like, bring it on!

Breeindy – They're great pic's of Pimmento, it's a beautiful plant which is always very much in short supply down here; it seems everyone is after it and very few actually have it.

Wendy – It seems like this bloody stomach bug is travelling around quite a bit as I had it and a lot of people in our area have it as well and like you, I can trace mine back to my grandson who we suspect, picked it up at Day Care so it looks like Day Care and schools are the breeding grounds for all of these “bugs” which are brought home by these little “buggers”! As you say, it does cause you to lose weight, I lost 1.5 kg in just two days, but I could think of better ways to do it.

It's a pity someone didn't take a video of you and Johnny fertilizing your Hallelujah seedlings with tea the other morning Ha! Ha! You may have just discovered a new type of ferilizer, either that or a new taste sensation to go with you morning cup of tea.

The Neo. carcharadon x concentrica x self seed did come from me and I hope you have found (like I did) that they are very good growers. I'm really looking forward to seeing them when they eventually mature down the track, however yours will mature much quicker than mine so I hope you can post a few pic's when they do to help combat the anticipation of the “long wait”. That's interesting what you say about the sphagnum and Coir Peat as I would have thought the plants in sphag. would have a better root system than the ones in Coir Peat; oh well we live and learn don't we?

Hula Girl is certainly a nice looking plant and one I'll have to add to my ever increasing “Wish List” which seems to get longer by the day. It sounds like your brom customers who bought all of the Alcantareas must be doing a bit of Landscaping, either that or they have a very big yard. They are certainly nice plants but I only have a couple as I just don't have the space to grow them.

Shirley – Thanks for the “welcome back” and believe me I've really missed being here. That's a great looking plant you have posted a pic of, I wish I had a few of them as they would be great in our main display at our upcoming show. I don't show plants in the competition any more as I find my time is taken up cleaning up and preparing plants to put in the main display. I also put on a small “table top” display showing the “Life of a Neo” from seed to maturity. It's only a very basic little display, however it has surprisingly created a lot of interest from young children and they seem very interested and ask a lot of questions, so maybe they are the next generation of brom growers.

That's about it for today and I'll once again finish with a few file pic's. Firstly of a section of our main display at our 2009 show, the second pic is of Sharyn who along with David (top right in background) are the two people responsible for setting up our main display every year. Pic three is a great specimen of Deuterocohnia which won the Grand Champion that particular year and the last two pic's are of my little display showing the life cycle of a brom.

All the best, Nev.