Australian and New Zealand Gardening: Bromeliads for novices & addicts, October 2012, 3 by bromishy

bromishy wrote:
Hi Everyone

Quick thread tonight, a quicker one than the other night.

Hi Shirley, great NOIDS, they are beautiful. I agree with Bree your first pic looks like Lila, I will have to check the pup I purchased which I thought was Lila and get back to you?

Shirley, in answer to your question regarding flushing brom centres out with fresh water once I have sprayed 50/50 metho' and water solution on my broms, yes I do normally flush the centres out but not the leaves, but at times I forget and this has had no ill effect on any of my broms, just ensure the brom get's to dry somewhere very shady and at all costs avoid any sun getting the the brom until its leaves have had a chance to dry off properly. I think the solution also repels the mozzies, but I also heard flushing brom centres out too often takes away the natural secretion that the brom makes that helps repel the mozzies anyway, I tend to only flush my brom centres out fortnightly for this reason and when I spray the brom's with the solution mentioned about I try to avoid getting too much in the centre as it is not necessary. The other option I take most of the time is to only spray when I need, like instances when I see a pest on a brom or in an overhanging tree I treat the tree with this solution as they shade my broms.

Hi Nev, thanks for the tip with my vriesea seedling trays, yes you are correct some of them are sitting on tiles (about half of them) and the other half on concrete slabs either side of an old bbq that we do not use, the old bbq plate I have covered with tiles to give myself a bit of a work bench in our entertainment area. I have covered the tiles with a layer of polysyrene.

Everyone, thanks for your wonderful advice about vriesea flower spikes, I decided to cut a couple off some of the ones in the entertainment area that had been there for a while, now mum can get busy and hopefully pup some :-)

I went out and brought Condy Crystals today to give this a go - yeah, can't wait to try on weekend.

Anyway better get going, catch up with you all next time, luved everyones pics - awesome as usual.

Happy Gardening!

Hope you don't mind a couple of orchid pics thrown in lol and of course broms to keep us bromaholics happy lol.

Pic 1: Phrap. Perseus Highclare
Pic 2: Paph. Rothschildianum x St Swithin
Pic 3: Vr. Angela
Pic 4: Neo. Lorena
Pic 5: Mixed Vrieseas and some very small pups purchased a couple of months ago