Australian and New Zealand Gardening: BROMELIADS IN SUMMER ..2014, 4 by splinter1804

splinter1804 wrote:
Hi everyone - How I love to wake up of a morning to hear the magpies warbling as they sit on the handrail of the back deck singing for their breakfast. There's Mum, Dad and the three kids now and the kids are just starting to warble with one in particular putting in the occasional "wolf whistle" (I don't know where he learned that, as I stopped it years ago as it got me into too much trouble).

The room with our computers, is at the opposite end of the house and whilst I can clearly hear the Magpies, I can also hear the delicate twittering of the little Blue Wrens just outside the window in the dwarf bamboo. Between the two, it seems quite a pleasant musical competition.

Teresa - When I had my vegie garden I found that as soon as the warm weather was upon us the lettuce, silver beet and Bok Choy would all bolt to seed, although I did have a winter variety of lettuce that didn't seem affected and produced all through the year.

Like you I always saved my own seed as well, and I don't think it was so much about the money you saved, but more about the satisfaction you got from eating vegies that were grown from your own seed.

As for the ananas flowers I posted pic's of, they, like a lot of brom flowers often go unnoticed as growers are too interested in looking at the overall flowers and foliage colours and only give the actual flowers a passing glance without actually looking closely into them and taking in their real beauty.

Shirley - I don't expect I'll stick to my plan of action, as it's always fallen by the wayside in the past as like you, I see something that needs doing and before I know it, I'm off on a different track and well away from the original plan. I guess it doesn't really matter, as these other jobs need doing too; but it would be good if I could stick to a plan just the same.

I have high hopes for that seedling in Pic.5, but as I said, it's very early days yet and it still could amount to "zilch". On the other hand, I was delighted with the colouring of the ('Charm' x 'Cracker Jack') x 'Lambert's Pride', but terribly disappointed with the shape and the long gangly leaves. I put this down the overcrowded area in which it was growing and I'm sure I can produce something much better from a pup when it's grown properly in a pot with a bit of bench space in which to move.

I haven't seen Neo. Isabel Garnet previously so I looked it up on the BCR and saw that it was imported to Australia by Pinegrove nursery, NSW, in 1988 from the Miami WBC. There's a bit more history and some pictures in which it appears to have been grown in lower light than yours and it can all be found at:
http://registry.bsi.org/index.php?fields=&id=10630&search=Is... Garnet

I really like the look of your Neo. 'Aztec' also, very much like my other spotted favourites, 'Gold Fever' and 'Gold Fantasy', there's just something about the colour combination of those plants that I really find attractive.

Time to go again and today's pic's are Nidulariums, another very much underated brom in my opinion. 1 is Nid. innocentii var. Striatum, 2 is Nid. 'Nat De Leon', 3 is Nid. 'Orange Bract' (previously Nid. fulgens orange) 4. Nid. Longiflorum and 5. Is Nid. 'Nana'

All the best, Nev.