Australian and New Zealand Gardening: BROMELIADS FOR NOVICES & ADDICTS - NOVEMBER 2012, 4 by splinter1804

splinter1804 wrote:
Good morning everyone – More showers over night down here and if that's the pattern of things to come, then bring it on, everything looks so lovely and fresh every morning,(except me of course).

Wendy – That's great that you have Max home and like I've said on previous occasions, I have the greatest admiration for vets and I sometimes think they are more skilled than doctors who treat humans. I'm sure the medical profession could learn a lot from veterinary methods which could benefit humans. I know for a fact that our vet reckons the medical profession has it all wrong when it comes to prescribing medications. He says they wrongly advise doses based on age and average weight of e.g. babies, children and adults where they should be prescribing on individual patient weight the same as is done by a vet. To explain more fully, he gives the example that if you give the required does to two men, one weighing 65 kg and another weighing 110kg, you will get two very different results as the lighter man will possibly be “over-dosed” and the larger man “under-dosed” and in both cases the medications are not being used to their full advantage. As for bringing in a “donor dog”, well I hadn't heard of that before, but it does make a lot of sense as I suppose that's easier and cheaper than having animal blood banks all over the country.

Ian – I certainly don't consider the “Kahoona” with a NPK of 6.4, 1.95, 8.2 to be high in Nitrogen; I have found that pretty well all fertilisers where the Potassium is higher than the Nitrogen is OK for brom's, in fact a lot of the ones commonly used have a Nitrogen rating as high as 13 to15 and the potassium less and only 8 to 10 in comparison . It's not so much the number of the particular ingredient but more importantly the ratio of that ingredient compared to the others we should be considering. As for your concerns about copper and zinc which you advise are both poisonous to brom's, I agree; but these chemicals are in most fertilisers, and in such “tiny” amounts which make up the necessary mixture of “trace elements” and in these quantities are harmless. When you compare them with the other ingredients they really are very, very small quantities, and to use the popular Osmocote for example which is used safely by many brom growers all over the world, the amount of copper and zinc is only 0.05% and 0.015% respectively.

Breeindy – I love the Neo 'Fairytale' in fact I love any brom's with those nice wide leaves and nice rounded shape and I agree that your Ae. Red Ribbons is getting too much sun as the bleaching is very obvious. Last year I took two plants of Red Ribbons and grew them in two different locations, high light and low light. The one in high light looked very much like yours with the effects of sun bleaching very obvious. The one grown in low light had much richer colours although the leaves were a bit linger where they had been reaching out for the light, so where you grow them I think is a matter of personal taste, like it is with all brom's.

I must congratulate you on your wonderful “study of nature” in pic 5 with the ant on his way to do a bit of flower pollinating. (keep your eyes open for possible seed pods in a few months time). I think this clearly demonstrates that a lot of the plants that we think we as humans have pollinated, have in fact been done by ants before or after us, and consequently the credit we take for producing nice hybrids should possibly be given to the ants and not us at all.

Shirley – Sorry I can't help you with a name for your plant except to say that it's a Neoregelia hybrid of some sort. However, I must say the collection of NOIDS you are accumulating are much better quality plants than a lot of the popular registered and named ones and I wish plants like this were available don here.

Sue – You sure made a bit of a mess with the microwave didn't you? Did you know that Bunnings now have N.Z. Sphagnum Moss in a compressed block. (It says “fush un chups” when you microwave it) Ha! Ha!

I haven't used it yet but some of the overseas growers use a similar product and just re-hydrate it without microwaving it and find it works OK. Maybe sufficient heat is used in the de-hydration process to kill all the “nasties”.

I'm sure there will be no shortage of seed from your Alcantarea (as long as a branch from the Gum Tree doesn't fall on it) I have grown Alcantareas from seed in the past and found that because the seed is large, they grow very quickly and easily so I imagine you'll have enough to sow all over the lawn and then you won't have to mow.

You've certainly done a good job with your Bill. 'Rosea', it's a beautiful plant but unfortunately, like all Bill's, the flowers are short lived. I particularly find the “watch-spring” type flowers fascinating and very appropriately named, as they do look like a coiled up watch spring.

That's it for this morning and I'll finish of with an interesting group of pic's showing the progressive colour changes of the very popular Nidularium 'Litmus 'Pic's 1- 4. (It will still show more blue as it matures even more and I'll post a pic of the “finished product” at a later date). Pic 5 shows what's left of last years flowering.

All the best, Nev.