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

perke_patch wrote:
Hi everyone.
Sue Ross orders the tills from Chris at Collectors Corner, in large quantities..... I think he said 300 at a time so he gets them cheaper than we could for smaller number. anyway I gave him $100 and asked him to get me a mixture of tills for that. I got 25 which makes them $4 each. Out of that 25 there's about 6 or 7 that I haven't got and will keep myself. The only thing was I really wanted a number of ionantha and this time Chris only sent about 4 ionantha in the whole 300 so I couldn't get the number I need for the project I have been asked to create for a guy. I'm going to have to climb out tree and get some from our clumps. Isn't it awful to have a several large clumps and not be prepared to take any of them when someone wants some??? don't want to ruin the effect do we??? ah well should be able to peel off 6 or 8 in a way that nobody will notice.

Ian pic 1 is the hanger we bought with multiple rings. pic 3 is the same hanger with a couple of plants in it. as I said I use these for small seedlings. at present they have seedlings of vr splendens I think. I've also included pic 2 which is the totem rings that Johnny has been making. this is actually an area that Johnny scrapped this week and redid. the totem is gone now and he has made or modified new shelves and the area is now a guzmania and foliage vrisea area. he keeps takiing over my neo areas for his stuff. he has just decided he is going to build up his collection of guzmanias..... the bigger the better. He does like those big ones even if they don't have names. and the variegated ones he love also.

now lets see which pic loads first. from memory I chose the neomea fraka rosea that I got from Ross. discovered this in the garden on the way out so he dived into the clump and came out with a plant roots & dirt attached with a flower coming. the last pic I chose I just had to share with you. we were sitting on the back deck enjoying a cuppa and I was sitting sideways on the chair so I could look down the yard when I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned to the back of the chair and nearly died at this leg coming over the top. It turned out to be this big guy in the last pic. scared the hell out of me but Johnny just put his hand out and it climbed on board. he took it down the yard and put it in a fairly thick bushy tree. he didn't want our pet magpies having him for lunch. Oops made a mistake the pic 4 is a closeup of my first pitcairnia flower. it is pitcairnia rhubarb x brongniartianum (hope that spelling is correct.... sure that's the way is sounds) I'll have to do another post for the ross pics.