Australian and New Zealand Gardening: OUR BROMELIADS INTO 2015.. , 5 by splinter1804

splinter1804 wrote:
Hi everyone – It’s quite old here this morning and the old fingers are aching quite a lot. As my old aunt used to say, “Arthur (Arthritis) isn’t well this morning”, however things will improve when the sun gets up.

I’ve just about got all the plants ready for the plant sales on Saturday and if I sell them I will have quite a bit more valuable bench space on which to put some good quality pups that need removing from their Mums.

Jean – I know just what you’re saying about your walk, and if I could say that the one thing I miss the most since I become partly immobile, it is my morning four km. walk from home to the entry gates of Bass Point and back again. It used to make me feel so refreshed and ready to start the day full of enthusiasm. It’s amazing the things you notice as you walk but never seem to notice them when driving; I guess you have more time to look when you don’t have to watch the road. Even though I walked the same route every day, there was always something different to see along the way, and it really made me appreciate just how lucky we are to live in such a wonderful area.

It doesn’t seem to matter how many different colours and patterns my hybrids turn out, everyone will have different favourites. You say you favour the plant in the first picture because you “ love the stripeys”, while I on the other hand favour the plant in Pic.4 as it has a bit of everything; mild variegation, nice soft colours, reasonable shape and a few spots and blotches thrown in for good measure. I was told by a judge it would never be any good for showing as the leaf pattern is “too busy” without a single feature clearly defined is how she described it………To each his/her own.

I’m pleased you aren’t going to fall into the same trap that many others do and remove all the pups from your Hallelujah. You will be so pleased you didn’t when it makes up into a nice clump and possibly the main feature plant in your collection. I’m posting a pic of one I grew once but unfortunately had to divide it a couple of years after the pic was taken as it just got too big and awkward to move around, however we had it in the house in front of the old fireplace and everyone who saw it commented on it favourably

Your mention of Neo. Gespachio reminds me there was one in amongst my sale plants which had four nice plants spaced evenly around the pot where the old mother plant had died away in the middle. It really looked nice and I put a bit of “old man’s whiskers” on top of the pot like a mulch dressing, and it really set it off. It looked so good in fact, for a moment I had second thoughts about selling it, but I have many plants of it so I guess it’s time to unload some otherwise I’ll just have more pups to remove and re-pot.

They’re a nice selection of Bill’s you’ve posted but my eye is attracted to your painting of the disused farm building in Pic.5. A while back I wrote how when we travelled through country Victoria and Tasmania I photographed every old farm house and shed we passed as I intended “one day” to use them as subjects for pen and ink drawings; I have a pic somewhere that looks exactly like your painting and was wondering if you painted it from a local picture or just from your own imagination. However it was done it appeals to me as that’s the sort of thing I like.

Trish- It certainly seems like you put in a very long day in the garden, and if that doesn’t help recharge your batteries, nothing will. Non-gardening people see this as work, but we gardeners know it as a “labour of love” don’t we?
Your mention of Neo ‘Frivolity’ prompted me to look it up on the BCR and I wasn’t surprised to see it’s an Allan Freeman hybrid. It was bred from a crossing of Neo. 'Fairy Plum' x 'Fairy Tale'. If the picture on the BCR is anything to go by it seems it will colour up much more in brighter light conditions.

Your “good luck” wish for our brom sales might be needed as I have a few doubts about how good our sale day will go as the idea was born from a suggestion I put forward a couple of years back, that we hold a trial “Winter Show”. It wasn’t met with much enthusiasm and nothing further done about it. We had different president at that time and he suggested the one day “Sale Day’ which again wasn’t met with much interest so was put on the back burner. Now that we have a new president someone asked at the last meeting if anything had been progressed about the sale and it was decided at that meeting to go ahead with it. Although I am interested and will certainly be keen to “pull my weight” and do my bit, I still have reservations about if the notice is too short and I feel the organising should have been started three months ago and it should have been advertised earlier and over a wider area. Anyway we’ll see on Saturday, I hope it all goes well but I’ll be pretty peeved if I have to bring a heap of plants home again.

Finally Hi to anyone who hasn’t posted for a while and we’d all like to hear from you again soon.

Time to go as we have a scheduled blackout here today from 0800 for necessary electrical maintenance work and I have to get a few things done requiring power yet (including breakfast). So I’ll just finish with a few pic’s of Bill’s for a change including my big Hallelujah for Jean.

All the best, Nev.