Australian and New Zealand Gardening: OUR BROMELIADS INTO 2015.. , 1 by splinter1804

splinter1804 wrote:
Hi everyone – Well the rain seems to have stopped so maybe some more work among the brom’s today. It’s quite a bit cooler so it should be more comfortable without the heat and high humidity, and besides there is more rain forecast soon so best make hay while the sun shines.

Teresa – Looks like just you and I again today, and it seems that right from the start you’re going to get me off track, so any members reading this, please don’t blame me, it’s Teresa’s fault for a change.

Although it’s my wife’s favourite wine, Sauvignon Blanc doesn’t cut it with me I’m afraid. My favourite wines for many years have been Australian Shiraz and Australian Riesling. Although I’ve tried probably every type of grape available, I always come back to these two and in particular my favourites are Rieslings for the Clare Valley and Shiraz from Coonawarra. I also like a nice Semillon and a winery just down the coast from here, Colangatta Estate makes a beaut which has been winning shows since 1988.

On the wine trail again and I have also developed a liking for Pinot Grigio. I prefer it to the Pinot Gris style as it seems to go better with seafood. It’s getting very popular here now and below is what Dan Murphy’s Wines have to say about it:

"In Australia and New Zealand, the terms 'Gris' and 'Grigio' are used to differentiate between different stylistic interpretations of dry white wine using the same grape, “Pinot Gris”. Inspired by the wines of Alsace in France's north-east, Pinot Gris suggests riper, fuller bodied wines that marry with roast meats including veal, pork and chicken.

Conversely, Pinot Grigio implies mid-weighted dry white wines, in a northern Italian vein. Pinot Grigio marries effortlessly with salads, cold seafood, calamari and an array of Asian foods."

Gee from what you tell us about your exploits with spiders we may have to start calling you “Spider Girl”. I think people over react whenever they see a spider, the same basic rule applies to being confronted with anything dangerous, “leave it alone”.

It’s true we have some of the most venomous spiders in the world, but it’s also true that we have some of the best anti-venoms available and consequently, there hasn’t been a recorded fatal spider bite to a human since anti-venoms were made available in 1981. To read some more interesting facts, go to: http://australianmuseum.net.au/Spider-facts.

Colleen – No I didn’t copy what you had written in your first sentence although you could be forgiven for thinking I did. I was just getting ready to post and saw your new post had arrived.

The long armed gloves that come right up to your arm pits offer the best protection of the lot and they are available in Bunnings for a reasonable cost. I now have two pair and always remember to put them on as soon as I see the blood running down both arms.

Colleen the name Shiraz is given to the Syrah variety when grown in Australia. Since they started enforcing all of the European regulations it’s illegal for Australia to sell wine under the European name. Syrah/shiraz was usually sold as Hermitage as in Europe but now all Australian wines are sold by the grape variety and even though our sparkling wines are made by the same method and from the same grapes as Champagne is made in France, we can’t call ours Champagne any more. The same is now being enforced with Port and Sherry and they too are being sold as Australian fortified wines, complicated? You betcha!

Want to know more? Go to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denominazione_di_origine_contro...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appellation_d'origine_contrôlÃ...

Regarding your disappearing name tags - Do you have any Bower Birds there Colleen? They’re a constant problem here as they steal any plastic name tags I use, that’s why I make mine out of aluminum slats from venetian blinds. That seems to have solved the problem.

As for me painting, I guess my old back and legs will tell me when the times is right.

Seeing I’ve banged on about wine and grapes a bit today, I guess it’s about time I got back to bromeliads otherwise I’ll be drummed out of the corps. Yesterday, when I was looking at my weed filled front garden I was quite surprised to see how some of the brom’s had matured. If you remember, I said some time back that this particular garden had become the home for all the otherwise unwanted brom’s. Plants such as seedling culls, plants that were shy to flower or otherwise unspectacular plants that really had nothing going for them, but plants I wasn’t yet ready to toss in the green bin”.

They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder and yesterday I looked at these plants carefully to see what they had to offer. I didn’t look through the eyes of someone wanting a plant for the show table I just looked at them through eyes that were trying to find something unusual or different either in colour, shape, habit or perhaps anything at all different to the norm.

First I came to Neo Monstrosus (Pic.1), this was a plant I had been trying to grow for several years and had come to me from a friend in Nth. Qld. It had just sat in a pot and only grown very slowly since I first got it as a rootless fresh cut pup. Even after three years it still had no roots and was showing signs of declining, so rather than toss it I decided to put it in “The Garden of Last Chance”. It continues to go backwards and then one day I spied a pup sticking up its head. Now some twelve months later it has almost died completely and has a rather strange shaped pup on one sided with a smaller one on the other side. I’m a bit reluctant to remove the pup in case it goes the same way as the mother, so if anyone has any experience or hints about this plant, please let me know. For more info, see this site: http://registry.bsi.org/?genus=NEOREGELIA&id=5879#5879

Pic.2 shows a little Vriesea flamea; this plant had been growing in a slightly shadier area for a few years with just the occasional flower, and again what I would call a “nothing plant”, this year I decided to move it right out into the open and see what this would do to it. It now seems much happier, and although in need of some serious dead-leafing, is happily flowering with eight spikes.

Pic.3 shows one of the many seedling culls that were used here to “fill a space”. When it was planted is was just a green brom with nothing going for it. As it was a Neo. ‘Noble Descent’ x ‘Noble Descent Too’, I was expecting more than just a green plant so in winter I decided to “practice what I preached” and moved it into the open to take advantage of brighter light. Now I seem to have been rewarded with a tougher little plant and nice colour (even if something has had a chew of it). In this case it wasn’t the fault of the plant, it was the grower who didn’t give it the conditions it required to show its best.

Pic.4 is a plant of Aechmea ornata var nationalis, it too had been languishing in a pot for over a year, and after seeing what this plant was capable of in the flower department (See No. 151 on the FCBS Photo Index and you’ll be pleasantly surprised) I decided to try it in the garden also. It’s still slow, but has since produced two nice pups so that’s an indication it likes where it’s growing so that’s where it will stay until hopefully it flowers.

Pic.5 was another seedling cull, this time from a Neo. (‘Charm’ x ‘Cracker Jack’) x Self cross which should have had more colour than the drab green that it was displaying. It too was moved into a brighter spot at the same time I moved the Neo. ‘Noble Descent’ x ‘Noble Descent Too’ and now nine months later, although there’s nothing in the shape to be excited about the colour is pleasing to the eye.

I guess the moral of this story is that if you have a plant that isn’t doing well, it may not be a problem with the plant, the problem may be with the grower not providing the right cultural conditions to suit the plant, so don’t be frightened to move plants around and try different locations.

Just as a word of warning though, don’t move a plant from a shady location into one of bright light in the warm weather as you may burn it; it’s best to move these plants during the cooler months and give them plenty of time to acclimatise to the new conditions.

All the best, Nev