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

splinter1804 wrote:
Hi everyone – Well yesterday wasn’t as productive as I thought it would be as I spent most of the day trying to find spots for all of the pups I re-potted and it seems now that any more I do will make me start the culling process. Any that don’t come up to scratch will have to go in the green bins to make way for the better ones. I suppose it was inevitable this would happen but I didn’t think it would be so soon.

Teresa – I’m glad you like the painting; I’m the first to admit I have no artistic ability but there was something that attracted me to it from the word go, and it certainly will get framed.

Jean – It’s good to hear you got some much needed rain; doesn’t it pep up the garden and all the brom’s? Like I’ve always said, “I wish I could bottle what’s in the rain, I reckon I’d make a fortune”.

It must be great having a tree loaded with apricots, we’ve been having to buy them here and like everything else over Christmas, the prices are inflated. Have you thought about drying some for future use? I think it was in Bunnings where I saw a small stainless steel fruit drying oven and it wasn’t all that expensive either. My son was talking about getting one to dry his tomatoes in as they all seem to come ripe together.

Flowering Ae. La Tigra was a nice surprise for you, it’s one I don’t have but I do know it’s thought to be a hybrid of Ae nudicaulis, and like a lot of the nudicaulis, the better light you give it the nicer the foliage colour will be. I see you have yours hanging, so the light must be right as the colour is nice. Like you say, the warmer weather is certainly bringing out the colours in the Neo’s and there seems to be something different to see each day.

It’s nice you were able to sit with Robert and remember the good times and also good you’ve been able to settle into the new home so well and I think what you’ve done with the garden in such a short time is amazing.

You say you had a quiet Christmas, however we had a very noisy one, but then that’s to be expected with three grandsons under seven. The thing is, they never stopped all day, and I must say I was pretty well exhausted when we went home just from watching them.

Well it looks like it's time to go again and to finish I'll just show a few pic's of some of my recent re-potting. The first two pic's are of the two rows of plants I re-potted on Sunday and the last three are of seedlings which I think could have some potential and will be grown on under better and less crowded conditions than they have been.

All the best, Nev.