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

splinter1804 wrote:
Hi everyone – Here we are again at the start of a new weekend. I got all of my mulch and potting mix OK yesterday, so if the weather holds I'll be weeding and mulching this weekend.

Cody – Good to see you have continuity of work; keep the new foals coming.

Breeindy – Nice to hear from you again, I know kids keep you busy running them around to their various sports. When our kids were young, the two boys played rugby league and my daughter played net ball all at different venues. 3 kids at different venues + two parents + one car = Logistical nightmare!

Ian – Your trip to Townsville could be very interesting as I'm told there are some very good brom growers in that area. I have a “Brom Friend” in Townsville called Rob Smythe who is a hybridiser with 189 registered hybrids (mostly Neo's and Aechmeas) to his name and who I'm told has a great collection.

He also writes a great informative little monthly News Letter called “Bromwatch Townsville” which he will email to anyone F.O.C. if they just request it; unfortunately I've never been to Townsville nor seen his collection.

I don't know if he's a member of the Brom club up there but if you give him a call it's quite possible you could arrange a visit to see his collection while you're there and I have no problem with you telling him I said to call. If you get on the BCR and type “Smythe” in the window of the search engine, highlight the box that says “breeder” and then hit the search button you will be able to see pic's of his work.

You say things are moving slower than you would like, and I can relate to that as there just seems to be so much work to do and not enough time to catch up with it. When I retired I was asked what I would do with all the spare time; what spare time? The trouble is that as I get older, jobs that once took me half an hour to do now take half a day, but I guess everything works out in the end and at least there's always something to do to stop me from being bored.

Now for a few pic's to finish with; Pic.1 Ae orlandianas in their new home, Pic's 2, 3, and 4 are Neo's I found that have pups to be removed and Pic.5 was a nice surprise I found flowering yesterday, Ae nudicaulis var. 'Aequalis'

All the best, Nev.