Australian and New Zealand Gardening: Bromeliads - Autumn 2015, 5 by splinter1804

splinter1804 wrote:
Hi everyone on this wet Easter Saturday morning. How sorry I feel for all the people who have gone down the coast for what’s now to be a wet Easter break with wet driving conditions that can only increase the carnage on the roads for people who continually fail to drive to these conditions.

I did a bit more re-potting yesterday, about thirty plants in al,l and some which I had even forgotten I had. One in particular was a large pot of Ae. dichlamydea var. trinitensis which had been knocked over by the village stray tom cat and gone unnoticed and consequently had started to grow crooked. What a job it was wrestling with that prickly monster to divide it into three large pups and a Mother plant with another half grown pup. Where I’m going to put them I don’t know as it’s quite vicious and I don’t want the grandsons getting stabbed as they run around the yard.

The other surprise was a plant of Neoregelia ‘Gunpowder’, another beautiful variegated hybrid from Chester Skotak first registered in 1998 and bred from a complicated mixture of genes with parents of Neoregelia (carolinae x 'Takemura Princeps') as the seed parent and Neoregelia ('Meyendorffii' x concentrica) as the pollen parent. See a good picture of it on the BCR (the second picture) at: http://registry.bsi.org/?genus=NEOREGELIA&id=4754#4754

My plant consisted of two large pups with the old Mother in the centre having died away. The pups were each about 18” high with one being normal and the other surprisingly a NOVAR. I say surprisingly as I’d never heard of ‘Gunpowder’ producing a NOVAR plant in our area before, but then I suppose with variegated plants, any thing’s possible as they always seem to have some sort of surprise for us, even the ones that are claimed to be stable.

Trish – Good to see a nice long post from you and see that you too are repeating the road safety message. I don’t know how much good it will do though as there were numerous bookings here last weekend for people not wearing their seat belts, and as one Police Officer said, “In all the fatalities I’ve seen in road accidents, the victims weren’t wearing seat belts” so what does it take to get the message through? I know that even our four-year old grandson when he gets in the car says, “Seat belts on Nannie and Poppy”, so at least the message is getting through to some.

I guess being prepared in advance for a cyclone is the best defence you can have as it’s no good waiting until it’s about to hit to decide to work out an action plan, far better to follow the old Boy Scout’s motto and “Be Prepared”.

I reckon anyone who saw Joe with all the Boggie Boards must have thought, “Gee all their kids must like surfing”, never for a minute thinking they were for the “Kanine Kids”, Ha! Ha!

I think dogs are great and the best friend you can possibly have and still miss my old dog terribly. Although I’d love another dog, I’m now wary about what would happen if it got out and I had to try and find it as my old legs just wouldn’t be up to it. I feel the owner has a responsibility to a dog to do what’s best for it and I don’t think that I could now provide what’s needed. The way the road is now with idiots speeding past every day even though it’s a 50 zone, I would be too worried about any dog I had being run over.

I know what you mean about the work required in the garden when pups grow and start to crowd each other. A few years back I planted a garden around the old Pepper Corn Tree in my back yard with some seedling culls along with a few other easy to grow brom’s. It is now a veritable jungle with the Neo ‘Sheba’ alone forming a clump almost eight feet across . On the other side there is a Vr. Phillipo-cobergii about four feet across with two or three flower spikes over six feet tall as well as all of the other plants trying desperately to get some space. This is my next mammoth job and I think I’ll have to call in anyone who wants some free brom’s I’ll have to get rid of a lot and I don’t have a ute any more to take them to the tip.

Although I’m not familiar with your conditions up there, I would have thought that 70% beige shade cloth would have been OK for Joe’s orchids. It doesn’t matter too much if the leaves take on a lighter green colour during summer as long as they don’t get burned, they’ll soon return to a darker colour when the hot weather is over. If you provide too much shade you run the risk of reduced flower production as they need good light to produce flowers.

Also if Joes is fertilising his plants you also need good light to convert the fertiliser so the plants can absorb it. When I grew orchids I used a shade cloth called, Coolan 28% “Orchid Shade” which was “all the go” then but I don’t think it’s available any more. It was great for conditions from Sydney and points south but it wouldn’t have been any good for the Queensland climate.

I think the best idea would be for Joe to ask local growers what they use and remember if using that extra layer, doubling it up doesn’t mean “twice the shade” e.g. two layers of 50% won’t give you 100% it will only give you about 75%, so that’s another thing you have to work consider as well. Below are a couple of links to sites that may help:
http://www.cmac.com.au/blog/choosing-right-shade-cloth-for-y...
http://www.cmac.com.au/nursery-equipment/shade-houses

Trish, the wet/dry vac I have is a Karcher was only about $80 in 1999 when I bought it. They are still sold by Bunnings and most stores that sell vacs (albeit a later model) but the price hasn’t changed much as they are now probably made in China and not Germany. As the volume of suction, I fitted a piece of suction tube from a different vacuum which can be adjusted by a slide control on the handle from very weak to very strong. Joe could probably just bore a hole in the plastic tube and control the force by covering or uncovering with his finger. I have found it to be a great bit of equipment as it doesn’t have a bag to empty and has been trouble free ever since I bought it and it’s used regularly for cleaning up my garage of nails, saw dust, bits of wood, potting mix and all other sorts of rubbish it was never designed to handle. Well worth the money. There are now a range of models but mine is a 20 Litre capacity and came with a spare cartridge which has proved very handy.

The old “Apple in the bag trick” to promote flowering has been around for years and although I’ve never used it myself, I know of others who have, including one “know all” who disregarded what she was told and left her plant in the sun (because it was winter) and steamed the brom. to death.

As for mounting brom’s on trees, I have some notes somewhere on this topic and I’ll dig them out and post them when I can.

Nice pic’s once again and what’s the name of the beautiful big burgundy coloured plant in the middle of Pic.2. Also the plant in Pic.4 (Top left), is it a Hohenbergia?
Brian – It sounds like you’re getting the same weather was we are down here. I went out the front to get the paper this morning and the brom’s were literally glowing in the rain; it certainly shows them at their best.

I had also heard some nurseries used acetylene to induce flowering but I’ve never witnessed it being used. I suppose it would be easier to get hold of commercially as it’s used extensively in the boiler making industry. It’s a pity I didn’t know about this when I was at the steelworks as I could have set up a closed off section out of plastic in the corner of the ambulance garage and hooked it up to an acetylene bottle. But then knowing my luck, someone may have gone out there for a smoke and blown the whole place up.

Just explain to your wife that grass is the most unproductive thing you can grow and suggest a nice big shade-house as well as a nice vegetable garden; two things you can both share and reap the products from; what’s more, you don’t have to bother about cutting the grass.
When I built my first shade house out of pipe for my orchids, securing the shade cloth was a real “pain in the bum” as it has to be laced on with fine tie wire. Now they have clips that fit around the pipe and just snap together to capture the shade cloth.

I know you’ll probably think the first picture today is very boring; it’s of a Billbergia zebrina growing in Brazil in habitat. However when you look closely you will see that it’s growing on a pile of old bricks that someone has dumped there. What are the chances of a single seed finding its way onto those bricks and actually growing to maturity and flowering? Certainly food for thought.

Finally four more Thai pictures to add a bit of colour.

All the best, Nev.