Australian and New Zealand Gardening: bromeliads for novices and addicts, sep, 2012, 4 by springer99

springer99 wrote:
Good Morning everyone,
thanks for the new thread Sue. Your bridge, pavers and stones look absolutely amazing, I really think the hand made pavers really make it too, it wouldn't of looked as nice with plain concrete type pavers, very well done. Pretty cleaver aren't you :)

To continue Nev's thing on where we all live, well I'm up north of Cairns, North of Port Douglas and close to the beach. We get a nice breeze here, Winter doesn't get that cold, but we do seem to get a few mornings that just dip into single didgits which is what some of the broms need to bring them into flower so that's good. Summer is extremely hot and humid here and the sun burns things very quickly. 70% shade cloth is not enough in Summer, last summer we had to have two layers of 70% over the brom house. Things like Ae blanchetianas and Ae bracteatas don't go under cloth in summer, but gee it takes a toll on them, they bleach out and usually get a bit of burn as well. Like someone else I know says, a lot of our "sun hardy" broms can't take full summer sun for 360 days of the year.... it's just those few days out of the blue that are particularly nasty that fry them and then... well they are ruined for a long time. So most people up here around the Cairns area, even erect temporary shade cloth over full sun gardens over summer.

I love everyone photos, gee it's amazing all the different broms out there.

We had Bloomin Broms on the weekend and gee there were some good talks. I really liked Nigel's talk on fertiliser and his photos to show the difference of heavily fed, well fed and only fed when potted as a pup. Wow what a comparison. I must say in most cases I much rather preferred the look of the "well fed" broms, it wasn't enough to make them go strappy or loose colour, but gee the over all size and shape was amazing.
I brought a couple of nice Vrieseas off him that he brought up for the sales, only very young pups, but they should turn out lovely, they are NZ pinks, so should be nice once they get going.
All the speakers were most informative and well worth attending and the hassle it took to be there, it was a good day and well organised and ran smoothly.

Then on Sunday it was Carnival On Collins, for Father's Day and that was a very relaxed great day. Ran into a few brom friends, brought only one on Sunday but had a fantastic day out with the family.

Ian, I'm not exactly sure what your rot in the lower leaves is, but we do get a similar thing that goes on here. I'm not sure where your broms that are getting this are located, but I was told by a friend up here that certain broms never grow well in a brom house, they get that lower rot in the leaves and will rot out on you. We have had a few do it, and we have taken them out of the brom house straight away and put them in the open garden and they have recovered well. We were told certain ones need a lot of natural air flow around them. Neo Gunpowder is one for us that does not grow well in the brom house, but loves the garden. And our brom house gets a lot of breeze. I'm not sure if that will be of any help, but thought I would mention it.

Oh the shirt Nev, sorry I forget you aren't on Facebook anymore, I'll attach a photo of how it came out. It's my Favourite Macho on the front of it from in the brom house. It came up quite well.

Well I'll add a couple of photos taken yesterday in the brom house, just a Neo Kahala Dawn and a kautskyii, oh and a Neo MacTiger too. I have a few MacTiger's (Macho X Skotak's Tiger) and MacRegiT's, which is the reverse cross (Skotak's Tiger X Macho) and I now know there can be quite a lot of variance in these. Being a seedling batch (grex) that was produced and distributed, some really did come out better than others, and from what I believe, only the better ones were supposed to carry the names, MacTiger and MacRegiT, but of course anyone who has that cross, puts the name on them. I have one RegiT that is quite horrible at the moment, I am waiting to see if it comes right, but then I have another one from someone else that is just amazing. They are very different to each other. Anyway this last photo is my favourite MacTiger.

I hope you all have a great day,
Cheers Tash