Australian and New Zealand Gardening: Bromeliads for Novices and Addicts - May 2013, 3 by bromishy

bromishy wrote:
Hi Everyone!

It rained today which was nice as it freshened up the garden and my broms. I went out there with an umbrella early this morning and nearly was late getting to work because I lost track of time which is so easy to do when you’re in the garden.

During my morning stroll amongst the Vrieseas; I was ecstatic to find 5 x pups on my Vriesea ‘Platynema Var. x Uluru Sunset’ given I have already taken 1 x nice sized pup off her, which would make it a total of 6 pups it has produced in 1 year. Hopefully mother brom can handle the pressure she is currently under and raise them up to be as big and healthy as the last pup I took off, time will tell?

Hi Wendy great to hear from you and that you have gotten away for a bit, hope you have a wonderful time and get to kick back and relax and post us all a thread when you can as we miss hearing from you.

Hi Nev about what I wrote about Termites liking Railway Sleepers, I count our blessings that we have not had any trouble here with Termites, I have always wanted pine bark or similar in our garden beds but we were worried about this bringing Termites in so we have not done so. Sorry to confuse anyone, but what I was trying to say yesterday in my post was that here we are worried about having pine bark or similar in our garden beds when we recently put Railway Sleepers in our garden knowing this can bring Termites but chancing it anyway. Nev thanks for the information about Cyprus mulch, with the 100% alternative against Termites is to instead use River Pebbles or similar types of stones.

Nev luved you’re Pic 4 of Guzmania ‘Sunny Time’ and Pic 5 of Guzmania ‘Hilda’, what great tropical colours to have in the nursery / garden, and something nice to bring inside to display in the home.

Hi Tash it’s been interesting reading the posts the last couple of days about the stabbing subject with broms to bring on the production of pups. It’s amazing some of the stuff we hear about on this great forum and this in another one that has totally blown me away, stabbing a brom, who would have thought. For now I will just resort to fertilising more when I think it’s needed which I had done with the Vriesea I mentioned above as it had flowered, the flower had died down and it had only produced the one pup, I then fertilised it plus dropped one little osmicote fertiliser granule in each lower leaf axels like I have read on this forum from Nev (thanks Nev) and now have 5 x more additional pups appearing on the mother which I am thrilled about.

Hi Sue sorry to hear you have still been experiencing issues with D.G, I know how it feels, how annoying.

Great Sue, flick us through an email with you details when you can as possibly the issue you are experiencing with your Orchids could be transferred from one plant to another either from water splashing from one plant to another or the wind carrying the disease across. It would be great if you can find that pic to send me so I can show my friend who is a wiz with orchids as well as she has many friends who have been collecting them for years.

Sue thanks for letting me know what mulch you use in the garden, now to decide what we will do in ours?

Anyway time to head, had a big day at work today and my eyes are getting droopy.

Trish

Pic 1 to 5 – Random Garden Shots mainly of Pups