Australian and New Zealand Gardening: BROMELIADS FOR MARCH ....2014, 5 by splinter1804

splinter1804 wrote:
He everyone – Finally I had a day where I accomplished something without getting side tracked and was able to stick to the job in hand all day. I was able to finish cleaning up around the frog pond and reposition some plants so more light fell on the water and while I was moving an old bit of log I found two frogs hiding beneath it. I don't know what sort they were as I haven't seen them before and the Frog Man who came to our meeting on Saturday didn't show pictures of them either. They were about two inches long, a light brown in colour with a nice yellow/orange stripe down each side of their bodies. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get a picture as they were very shy and as soon as I exposed them they jumped in the pond, swam to the other side and hid under another bit of timber. When I looked closer at the pond I see there are dozens of tadpoles swimming around so it seems it suits them OK as it is and I won't have to relocate it after all.

I managed to get all of my Ae orlandianas and Ae. nudicaulis and nudicaulis hybrids hung up where they can be seen better and today's job consists of levelling the ground beneath them to accommodate some of the larger potted plants. Unfortunately the job will be interrupted as I broke a tooth in half last night and have to go to the dentist at 11 to get it fixed. I was a bit concerned I would have a long wait for an appointment but fortunately they had a cancellation so I can get something done about it before it starts aching and when I get home I can continue on with the work.

Cody – I've just now remembered that your temperatures are Fahrenheit and not Centigrade like ours and when you talk about temps of 20 degrees F they are equivalent to our -6 degrees C and even 50 degrees F is still only 10 degrees C and much colder than even the worst winter temperatures I get here. I'm afraid it's much too cold for me thank you very much, so best that you and Alex “rug up” and stay warm, that's all I can say.

I see in your last post you say, “Now the temp is 32F with a wind chill of 24F”. Wow! Even without the wind chill factor, that's Zero degrees C and much too cold for me.

Trish – What a pleasure it is to see you back posting again, and I completely understand where you are coming from with how your visitors would have interrupted the normal routine in your home. I know when my son and his family come over here for just a three week holiday each year from Bali, although we love to see them so much, it still alters the way everything is done around the place and our normal routine goes “up the spout”.

What you say about your work seems to be the norm these days where the employers wring every last drop of work out of the employees due to staff cuts and without any improvement in wages or conditions for those left to pick up the remaining positions. Sooner or later with this added work load, mistakes start getting made and costing the employer money or the health of the employee suffers and results in more sickness related absenteeism. The employers need to realise they “can't have their cake and eat it too”.

I'll be interested to hear how you go with your market stall. It sounds like you have a good variety of different plants to sell so you should attract a variety of customers and not just those interested in brom's. Your mention of gingers and heliconias reminded me to tell you that one the remaining ginger you gave me is now over two feet in height and growing well, so well in fact I may have to relocate it to a position where it has more room to grow. I didn't know you grew heliconias also, so maybe I'll have to swap you something for one of them to try, that's if you think they would grow down here.

Your pic's are full of colour as always, and even though they aren't recent ones they are still very “easy on the eyes”. It seems you're like me and just don't seem to get the time lately to take any new pic's, however I'm gradually getting back on track as I expect you will too. It's a good job Shirley, Ian, Colleen and Wendy put up regular pic's to keep the show going.

Colleen – Firstly, do you have MS Word or a similar programme on your computer? If not there is a free programme you can easily download called OpenOffice.org3.4 which is what I use a lot of the time as I like it better than MS Word. It is compatible with MS Word and is very user friendly.

Most computers have MS Word anyway and to start, just click on the MS icon and a blank page will appear.

Type what you want to type and when finished, highlight the text you wish to transfer to DG (or anywhere else for that matter) by left clicking and holding down the mouse button and dragging the cursor until the relevant text is all highlighted.

Then just right click and select “copy” from the list of options available. (Think of it as now having transferred this text into your mouse). Open what ever site you wish to copy the info to (in this case DG) and move to the area where you normally type your post, (“Your Message”) and with your cursor within the margins of this area, right click on your mouse. Another box of options will appear and from this, just select “paste” and your text will be transferred.

After a couple of practices it's really quite simple; it must be because I can do it and I'm a “computer illiterate”.

I'd never heard of Brugmansias until I came onto DG and once I saw a pic, I realised they were the plants we call the “Trumpet Flower” here. I never realised they were so popular or varied as we only have the white or peach coloured one here. However they'd be no good to me as they'd take up more space than the brom's.

If your nurseries are anything like ours, I wouldn't waste your time taking pups to them as they usually only want established plants in full colour and “pay you peanuts” for them, and sell them at inflated prices. It might be more worthwhile advertising on the internet via a free advertising site called “GUMTREE” available in all states except N.T. I know Jen has used it successfully and it won't cost you anything to try.

Don't even give up on the plain 'Mister Odean' seedlings as the one I posted the pic of was a “nothing brom” for a long while, and narrowly avoided the green bin on a few occasions. Even if you grow them on and see what the pups are like, you may just get a nice surprise.

I know your pic only shows a small part of your garden, but it's a great collection of different varieties and colour, and very easy to look at.

As for the plants I was going to send you and Jean on Monday, what can I say except sorry; I got so wrapped up in the progress I was making on my reno. I completely forgot all about them. I'll send them next Monday for sure.

Ian – It's great you've kept a photographic record of the results of the treatment you gave your plants and very generous of you to share it with us all so we may lean as well.

Looking at the areas on the plants which were cut, they're looking good and pretty sound with no more signs of rot that I can see at this stage. It seems it hasn't affected the grass pup production either, in fact it may just encourage them to grow quicker. I don't know what further treatment you have in mind but I'll mention a couple of things I have tried successfully in the past with Neo's that had rotted off. These weren't my ideas but ones I read about on one of the international forums.

After I had cut away the rotted tissue and dried the bases sufficiently and was sure there was no further signs of rot, the time had come for them to be potted up again. I used both methods as described in the article I read.

1. I wrapped the base of one plant in sufficient fresh Sphagnum Moss (about a good hand full) to adequately cover the cut area and the base of the plant and then potted up in my usual potting mix. (I think at that stage it was just straight “Brunnings Orchid Potting Mix”.

The logic behind this treatment is that Sphagnum Moss has natural antiseptic/fungicide qualities. Wickipedia says: Sphagnum moss has also been used for centuries as a dressing for wounds, including through World War I. Since it is absorptive and extremely acidic, it inhibits growth of bacteria and fungi.

2. With the second plant I half filled the pot with potting mix and then topped up to three quarters with unwashed beach sand gathered from where the sea water washed over it daily. I sat the base of the plant on this and then topped off with my normal mixture. (I cut a piece of shade cloth to fit over the bottom half of the potting mix to prevent the sand from being washed away). The purpose of the sand is to aid good drainage and also as a vehicle for the salt. It's the actual salt that treats the rotted area but I don't know exactly what part the salt plays in the healing and preventing the re-start of the rot. All I have read is that it's been used for thousands of years in Chinese medicine for treating many ailments including fungus diseases as well as bacterial infections; however it must be natural sea salt, not the processed salt we buy in the shops.

The final result of both trials was that both plants recovered and produced a healthy root system, however the progress was much quicker with the Sphagnum Moss and the root system much more substantial than the plant treated with the salt.

As for the plant of Nobel Descent I posted, it was put in an area exposed to full unprotected sun temporarily during the previous winter and I had meant to re-locate it and forgot. It went right through summer in this area including a couple of heatwave days with the only damage being a couple of burns on two of the leaves. I did find out though that this is one very tough brom.

Your seedlings are looking good mate; all neat and tidy with room to grow, not like mine all out grown their pots and blocking the light from their neighbours.

Wendy – There's some nice barring on the seedling in your first pic, but oh look at those prickles!

What is the larger plant at the rear of the group shot with the red name tag? It doesn't have the tubular shape of the other Bill's and the colour's different as well.

My other question is, what did you do to the last pic to get it the right way up? You just have to do the same to all the others now and the “sideways problem” is solved.

That'll do me for today and to days pic's are some of the progressive shots of the “reno”. Pic.1 shows the clean-up almost complete, Pic.2 shows some of the Ae nudicaulis and nudicaulis hybrids hanging in their new home, Pic.3 shows the Frog Pond almost finished, Pic.4 shows some more Ae nudicaulis and Ae. pinelina plants and Pic.5 show my Ae.orlandiana collection.

All the best, Nev.