Australian and New Zealand Gardening: BROMELIADS GOING INTO WINTER 2015, 3 by splinter1804

splinter1804 wrote:
Hi everyone – It looks like the weather is still being kind to me and yesterday I was able to water half of my collection in readiness for a good “Seasolling” today as part of my preparations for winter.

Tomorrow I’ll water the other half and then on Thursday they’ll cop the Seasol also.

Jean – Gee now you’re bringing back memories of the mushrooming days of my childhood. Where we lived was in a dairy farming area, and I don’t know if it was the cow manure or what, but the country always seems to be covered in “mushies” after a nice shower of rain. Unfortunately this same area is now covered in houses and not mushrooms and I have to go to the local fruit market to buy them, but it’s not all bad news as there are now many more different varieties available to feed my addiction.

When we went mushrooming we would walk down the railway line and pick a bucket or two of wild peaches from the trees on the side of the tracks, and leave them to be picked up on our return trip. If the Blackberries were ripe we would pick some of them as well; so that kept Mum busy when we got home as she would stew the peaches and also make a blackberry pie, or sometimes make a peach pie or a peach and blackberry pie (all great tasting pies, and my mouth’s watering as I remember them). A great plate of mushrooms on toast and the pie for desert was a pretty decent meal……………………Memories.

Back on track again and onto mulches; when I lived at Dunmore we were just up the road from the station and the rail trucks would bring in loads of Lucerne hay for the local farms. During the unloading from the rail trucks onto lorries there would be a lot of spillage on the ground which we would rake up and use as mulch on the vegetable garden as well as including some in our Cymbidium mix. As it belongs to the Pea family, Lucerne also has a good proportion of natural nitrogen and it really made things grow. Even now it’s much more economical to buy a bale of Lucerne hay at the produce store than sugar-cane mulch or pea straw at the nursery.

They’re a couple of nice “pic’s from the past” you’ve posted and they are a great record of how plants looked when growing under various conditions and certainly good to use as a comparison from how you grew them preciously to how you grow them now.

Teresa – I’ve noticed in all organisations I’ve been in, that attendance is always down at the AGM and when it comes to electing officers for the coming year everyone seems reluctant to put their hand up for a job. Everyone likes to accept the benefits of a club environment but it’s usually the same old few doing all the work.

Raking up leaves and composting seems to be a thing of the past these days as people are “time poor” and it’s easier to buy a bag of ready mixed compost than make your own. Gone are the days when every back yard had a vegie garden and a couple of compost heaps brewing; just a sign of the times I guess. However, before we had “Green Bins” we had to compost the leaves and grass clippings as that was the only way to get rid of them and help the environment as well.

So now that you’re “El Presidento” do you get to wear the “Grand Poobah” hat as well? Congratulations for taking on the job and doing your bit to keep things going in your club, you are now one of the important “few” who do all the work.

Brian – Just because you can’t find anything on the WWW about 'Scarlet Manooka' doesn’t mean it must be something else, it’s just that it hasn’t been registered and could be someone’s “pet name” for a plant they have, without a name.

There are thousands of plants around with names that aren’t registered. As registration isn’t compulsory many people don’t bother (even some of the very big hybridisers), the thing is that it does help to ID a plant as well as giving some of its history which is useful when hybridising. By not registering plant names, you are just adding to the confusion of duplicate names that’s getting larger and larger each day.

Personally I think if someone has a plant worth giving a name to, they should register that name also as it’s a free service, can be done on line in probably less than ten minutes and only needs a photo, a description and a few details of who the hybridiser was and what parents were used if known.

That’s it for today and I’ll finish with a few random pictures from the past of some of my Vrieseas.

All the best, Nev

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