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

splinter1804 wrote:
Good morning everyone, nice to see at least three of our members are posting. I guess the rest are either sick, busy building (Sue), or doing their Christmas shopping. Anyhow, “G'day” to everyone and a “Get Well Soon” to anyone on the sick list.

Trish – I too will be glad when the weekend comes around so we can read what you've been up to during the week and of course look at some more of your beautiful pic's.

Wendy – Good to see you both enjoying life with Max being happy and doing things he always did.

The effects of that passive drug smoking could have been devastating if it had occurred later in the night after you all had gone to bed and Emily had been sleeping in that room with the window open. It makes you wonder what the country's coming to with everything you seem to read now having a connection in some way with drugs or the criminal activity as a by-products of people using them; where will it all end? I don't think I could have restrained myself if it had been my house, and I would have had the mower out as soon as it was legal to do so and made sure it was revved up as high as possible; I can just imagine the look on their faces, a bit like a startled rabbits.

I've heard of other growers using the barbed wire to hang their plants from but often thought that it would sag too much and look unattractive. Do you find this is the case? Could you take some pic's to show us all how you have used your barbed wire as I know I'm always interested in new ideas and I'm sure others are as well.

You say you didn't send me the Neo. 'Manoa Beauty' seeds and I can't remember where I got them from so I guess I'm just as guilty as you for not writing things down. I really do need to accept that as I'm getting older so is my memory and it isn't as efficient as it once was, so better record keeping required from me in the future.

As for your back aching from sitting and doing a lot of potting, fortunately it doesn't effect me that way; in fact I can happily sit all day and pot plants with no back pain whatsoever, the trouble starts when I go to stand up and everything from the waist down aches because all the lower limb muscles have tightened up and I have to gradually stretch them to get things moving again.

I really do like your “Blood Lily”, it's very unusual and I've never seen one of them before. Do you think they would grow down here where it's colder and if so, put my name down for a bulb when you eventually get around to dividing it up please.

Shirley – Sorry I can't help with an ID for your Neo. It's obviously still just a pup, so perhaps if you post a pic when it matures, things may look a lot different. There are thousands of these variegated Neo NOIDS around but this one looks a bit better than the average with very strong albo-marginated markings. If those faint pink lines on a couple of the leaves eventually grow out, you will have a very attractive plant.

I'm “scraping the bottom of the barrel” looking for new pic's to finish up with so here's a few I took yesterday. Pic 1 is of another Billbergia 'Rosea' I found when re-arranging a section of the garden yesterday. I found it just in time as the flowers were dragging on the mulch. If only I had a nice tree to mount these plants on so the flowers could be shown to advantage a they really are quite spectacular. Pic's 2,3 and 4 are of another seedling which came from what was thought to be a selfing of Ae Nudicaulis but as you can see by the flower shape, there is obviously some Ae. Gamosepala in there somewhere. What attracted me was the colour, the camera didn't capture it accurately but it is a very pale grey and almost white. Finally, Pic 5 which is “Jacko” our feathered friend who is in for 3.00pm dinner.

All the best, Nev.