Australian and New Zealand Gardening: BROMELIADS IN SUMMER ..2014, 5 by splinter1804

splinter1804 wrote:
Hi everyone – I'm starting on 26/11 5.00pm and will finish it tomorrow sometime hopefully.

First of all, Hi to anyone on the sick or injured list, Shirley, Diane and Colleen immediately spring to mind and I hope you all soon get over your injuries

Well I went for a walk around “the plantation” today and what did I see? Pups, pups and more pups all screaming out to be taken off the mothers and potted up. Boy oh boy have I got some work ahead of me, I might have to get a Brom Gardener for Christmas.

It’s strange; but at this time of the year, if you aren’t among your plants for just two or three days, when you do eventually get to look at them again, WOW! What an array of colour greets you and it’s difficult to comprehend how the colours can change so quickly.

My hand is bits sore this arvo as I went to physio this morning and had some pretty intensive exercising from the therapist. I think she was previously employed in Colonel Klink’s concentration camp as she sure knew how to make things hurt. Even dressing the wounds, “rough as guts” and I even had to tell her how to dress them, so I’ll probably pay the price next time.

Colleen – Sounds like you’ve had an allergic reaction or been bitten by something, the following link shows images of various spider bites for comparison with yours.

http://firstaid.about.com/od/bitesstings/ig/Spider-Bite-Pict...

The most important info required to treat any spider bite is correct identification of the culprit that bit you and this link will show you a good identification chart from a pest extermination company which every household should be familiar with:

http://www.termite.com.au/spider-identification.html

Even though you’re on antibiotics, still keep a close watch on it and I hope it gets better soon.

I guess we can all breathe a bit easier now as they say that accidents come in threes; first it was me and then Diane and now you, so it looks like the rest of you are off the hook for the time being.

I'm Back again (Thursday morning) and it's been raining all night and is really "chucking it down" now as I type. It's a pity I can't send a bit to you people who need it badly.

Trish - Speaking about Nanny Naps, I've been feeling like one every afternoon since I hurt my hand, could it be a delayed effect of the anesthetic?

Thanks for the explanation about the Water Tractor, I'm certainly going to look into one of these. I see there are several different brands; what brand is yours and have you had it long?

It seems you and I have differing shade house priorities, mine is Neoregelias while yours is Vrieseas. I guess it would be a pretty boring world if we all had the same plant priorities.

I have several different forms of Neo.'Meyendorffii ' from mini's to standards with most of them variegated. I do find that some of the variegated ones are pretty unstable though and vary a lot between generations in their markings while some regularly produce albino pups..

You certainly do have a nice selection of Vrieseas coming along (even if the pic's are sideways). I remember when Wendy posted on here that some of her pic's often turned out sideways and she wasn't sure what was causing it, maybe she was using one of those new fancy gadgets instead of a camera also.

Brian - "Been there and done that" - I remember about five years back the kids were playing cricket after a BBQ with friends late one afternoon and I was "conned" into joining in. I really enjoyed myself and was surprised I could still bat, bowel and run. But for the next week, I was flat out walking; "silly old bugger".

Regarding watering, I pot all my plants in the same mix, i.e. although the different genera have different mixes, all The Neo's are in the same Neo. mix; all the Vrieseas are in the same Vriesea mix; all the Bill's are in the same Bill. mix an so on. That way I know how long they will go until they need watering. If you have a large collection and are using different mixes for the same genera, you will find some will be too dry and require watering whilst others in the same genera (but in a different mix) will stay too wet and that's when you start having problems with rot.

Teresa - Your computing course sounds interesting especially the module on M.S. Publisher which is something I'd like to learn myself.

I can't really comment on what the bite of a White Tailed Spider feels like as I've never been bitten nor do I know anyone who has. All I've ever read states "the bite can be painful" (a bit ambiguous I think) and unlike a Red-Back bite, which a patient once described to me as feeling like someone holding a lighted cigarette to his skin.and extremely painful. So there was no doubt he had been bitten.

Colleen - Pleased to hear the bite or what ever it was is settling down. It seems the links I put at the top of this post when I started out yesterday are a bit late, but no worry, there is still a good spider identification section which will be handy for everyone (the boys included).

You shouldn't rule out that it could also have been caused by a spike on a brom or more likely something on the spike. I know I've often had swelling and itchy areas after weeding between brom's. Maybe it could be the sap of some weed which has caused an allergic reaction. I once read that if we all understood just how many different toxins were in the plants in our gardens, we'd all have concreted yards, Ha! Ha! ......... Anyway the main thing is that you're on the mend.

That's a nice looking variegated Ae. nudicaulis you've posted this morning, everywhere I look there seems to be a nudicaulis of one sort or another bursting into flower, and I know it's been a particularly good year for them in our area as other growers are having the same experience.

Jean - Gee I was just getting ready to load my pic's an the message came up to say someone else had posted; isn't that great, this forum seems to be getting back to how it used to be.

Although you will probably take a while to get familiar with growing fewer plants, it's always better to grow a few plants well than a lot of plants not as well (like I do). What is it they say, "quality is better than quantity".... There's a lot of truth in some of these old sayings.

It's also good to see you getting out for some lunch with a friend and I'm sure you'll soon find you're running out of time to do all the things you want to do.

Time to go again, and today I'll finish with some pic's of some of my variegated Neo's taken off a memory stick. I. is Aussie Dream 'Glorious', 2 is Aussie Dream 'Red Fleck', 3 is Aussie Dream 'Red Glow', 4 is concentrica x 'Painted Lady' #01, and 5 is concentrica x 'Painted Lady' #03.

All the best, Nev.