Australian and New Zealand Gardening: BROMELIADS FOR MARCH ....2014, 3 by splinter1804

splinter1804 wrote:
Good morning everyone – Well it seems the worst of the rain has gone but the forecast is for more “on and off” showers for the remainder of the week. The weather report said that the recent torrential rain was a one in thirty year event so it seems I must have slept through the last two as I can't ever remember rain like it and thankfully I won't be around to clean up after the next one.

I spent most of the day cleaning up after the rain and fortunately no real damage. I went to the museum for a short time yesterday and on the way passed a group of new homes in a low lying area. These were like most new homes these days and built using the “slab on the ground” construction and not like my old place built on brick piers. Without exception the whole six of them had their carpets ripped out and lying in the drive as the result of flooding, and just like I've always said, “slab on the ground” constructions may be cheaper to build, but are only good if you live on the top of a hill.

Theresa – Sorry to hear you're being made redundant; it's a nasty word we are hearing more and more of in these days of constant change. It seems it's all about cutting the number of the workers, working the remaining ones harder for the same pay and charging more for the same product just to satisfy the shareholders. To sum it all up in one word …......”greed”.

Anyway, it's not the end of the world mate, keep your chin up and keep looking, I'm sure you'll eventually find something else.

Ian – What I do with sites I use on a regular basis is to save them to “My Favourites” or on the other computer I “Bookmark” them. In either case when I want to get on the site I just click on “Dave's Garden” in the "Favourites" or "Bookmark" lists and there it is. Most time it will come straight up but occasionally it will ask me to log in and I then have to select “Communities” and then “Discussion Forums” before selecting “Australian and New Zealand Gardening” and then finally our thread, in this case “BROMELIADS FOR MARCH ....2014” but in most cases I get straight onto the site.

It's good to hear you enjoyed your time at Townsville even if most of the time was taken with traveling. Maybe a better option would be to stay overnight if you go again. It's also good to hear of a Brom. Society with a younger membership even if it did make you feel like a “fossil” and it goes to show that Brom. Growing in Townsville is alive and well with the younger generation as well as us more mature (I won't say “old fart”) growers. That shade house sounds just like what I could use, however the finances wouldn't stretch to the cost. Anyway it's no good wishing to have something you can't get, better to just make the best of what you have.

Too bad you couldn't fit in a visit to Rob or Trish, maybe you can arrange it for some other time as I'm sure you'd enjoy both of them.

As soon as I saw you had named the plant in your Pic.5 yesterday as 'Hawaiian Sunset' I immediately went to look it up on the BCR and the FCBS Photo Index as although I don't have it myself, I have heard a lot of “good things” about it. I was very surprised to see that although it was registered way back in 1979, the only info given about it is “c.v. of unknown parentage”. The FCBS site doesn't have anything at all about it............... very strange indeed.

Ian, you probably shouldn't wish for a redundancy package as there are good ones and bad ones with the good ones being in the minority. It all depends on how badly or how quickly your employer wants to get rid of you as to just how good your particular package would be.

If you or Theresa get one, my advice would be to read the “fine print” very carefully and seek the advice of your union (if you're in one) to make sure you are getting all of your correct entitlements; most employers are genuine but there are still the “crooks”around you have to double check on.

Well that's it from me for today and I'll now have a look to see what pictures I have to share this morning. Firstly my three favourite Ae. recurvatas; Pic.1 Ae recurvata “Little Surprise' (Unreg.), Pic.2 Ae Aechmea 'Blushing Pineapple' (Unreg.) Pic.3 Ae recurvata 'Rising Sun' (Unreg.). Next is not my pic or my plant but it is of Ae. spectabilis which is a species many of which I grew from seed. Finally, Ae. 'Bert' (Dark leaf form), this isn't my plant either but is the Mother plant of my plant which came to me as a pup via a swap with a friend from Far North Queensland.

All the best, Nev.