Australian and New Zealand Gardening: BROMELIADS FOR EVERYONE IN 2014, 4 by splinter1804

splinter1804 wrote:
Hi everyone – Here it is Sunday already and hopefully another nice day. I spent yesterday morning watering half of my collection and in the afternoon I started on the weeding and dead-leafing of the plants in the garden section beneath the shade cloth on the northern side of my yard. Although feeling pretty stuffed at the end of the day, I feel I did have a pretty productive day and packed everything up feeling quite satisfied with myself.

Jean - It's hard for me to imagine you experiencing icy winds at this time of the year, although I suppose there is still a bit of snow left on the mountains and that's where that's where the wind is coming from. Snow's not really my cup of tea, I saw snow once and that did me and I had no inclination to see to ever again but I was eventually pressured by the kids to take them when they were younger, so off we went again. I told them that the next time they went it would be when they were old enough to drive themselves.

Your mention of Nidularium fulgens prompts me to mention that this year I have a better selection of Nidulariums in flower that I ever have before. I don't know why, but previously they used to flower spasmodically throughout the year but this years they all seem to be coming out at the same time. They do have beautiful flowers and I often wonder why more people don't grow them as they are a very handy plant and will often grow and flower in shady environments where nothing else will grow.

Regarding plastic pots, I find the most common types used by growers in our society are all of the squat type and range in the following sizes; 100mm (4”) 125mm (5”0)and 150mm (6”) and 200mm (8”) for some of the larger plants. As I have said before, I find my plants grow much better when under-potted, but this does present the continual problem of them toppling over easily when they gain a bit of size. I have had a Vr. hieroglyphica large enough to flower while still growing in the original 4” pot. Although it was sitting among other plants in the garden, the roots had made no attempt to grow down into the ground with just a few sneaking out of the pot just amongst the mulch. Because most of the common brom's we grow are all originally epiphytes I guess they have no need for the confines of a pot and many are quite happy just sitting on top of the ground, on a rock or in a tree. We the growers just put them in pots for our own convenience.

Dead leafing a brom won't cause any damage as long as it's done properly. Always start from the dead leaf which is on the outside and work your way in. Before attempting to pull the dead leaf off, I usually cut it off about 3” up from the bottom and then split it down the middle. I then pull each half leaf away from the centre. Never pull off the whole leaf in one piece as you can easily rip off any tiny pup nodules which are just starting to peep out of the base of the plant. By dividing the leaf and pulling each half away from the centre, the new pup nodes are protected from any damage. Also by clearing off any dead growth from around the base, the new pups have less obstacles to push through as they start their growth and you are also robbing scale and some of the fungus pests of a place to breed.

Cody – It's too cold for me over where you live; I think I'll stick to our weather even though it is unpredictable.

Colleen – I love the Ae. nudicaulis plants with the various patterns and twisting growth habit. Often they are forgotten until the brilliant scarlet bracts initially make their appearance to remind me they are about to flower. I have one plant in particular, Ae. nudicaulis var. aequalis that is full of seed every year and all of the experts on another forum were adamant it was always self pollinated as it would never accept the pollen from another plant. Because it is a species, all seedlings resulting from that seed should be the same as the mother plant, (Ae. nudicaulis var. aequalis)

Because I liked this plant so much I decided to grow some of this seed and increase my stock. They germinated and grew easily, but as they grew it soon became apparent they weren't all going to be the same, as foliage colours varied. Once they reached adulthood, it was obvious they were a hybrid of some type as apart from the difference in foliage colours, they all lacked the “thumb print” or indentation at the base of the leaves which is a common identifying feature of Ae. nudicaulis. When eventually they did flower they lacked the brilliantly coloured bracts with most of them being a pale pink in colour, and the flowers weren't yellow like the nudicaulis flowers either and ranged through various pastel colours of similar shape to those of Ae gamosepala. In fact they were just like gamosepala flowers except they were more spaced out on the inflorescence and were various colours. I'm not an “expert”, but my guess is that the pollen parent was the gamosepala which was growing nearby.

It's good to see the boys have a collection of pets, and it's a pity all kids don't have the same opportunity. I think it teaches kids responsibility as once they realise that these pet depends on them for their food and water they then take on the role of “keeper” which is a 24/7 job.

I'm afraid your two ducks may well finish up on the table as “Peking Duck” if they lived here (but don't tell the boys that); incidentally; just a gentle reminder for Trish as she was going to send me her recipe for this delicacy.

I'd forgotten all about the reading material I sent you, anyway it won't deteriorate as it waits patiently for a bad weather day when you can sit back with your feet up and read some of it.

Theresa – It never occurred to me that you might be on a different island to “Totara Waters”, in fact I never did geography at school so it's one of my weak points, but I guess you can always look at the pictures on Peter's web site and dream.

Shirley – I see on the news last night that 2013 was our hottest ever year since they started keeping records, so it's no wonder you're copping the heat up there, and what's more they say the Brisbane area can expect more of the same, so not nice to look forward to. Shirley when I covered my brom's with shade cloth “off-cuts” as an emergency measure, I put a few random short stakes in among the plants just so the shade cloth wouldn't be touching them. This seemed to successfully prevent the transfer of heat from the hot shade cloth to the plants.

I don't have either Ae.'Melodrama' nor Ae.'Melanocrater' but I do have a Neo. of that name, (Neo.'Melanocrater') but I can't find any records for that either. It's a rather large Neo. of the spotted type and very similar to Neo.'Moby Dick'. In fact I sometimes wonder if it is 'Moby Dick' and carrying the wrong name tag, but I have nothing to compare it with so if anyone on this site has a plant of Neo.'Melanocrater', could you please post a pic.

I'll put you down for a pup of Ae. orlandiana 'Stain Glass' and I already have you down for Ae. orlandiana 'Touch-a-Pink'. A lot of them have pups on them now but I still haven't got around to taking them off yet, but if there's any that you want which are ready, you're next on the list.

What used to be our local tip is now the “Recycling and Waste Disposal Depot” (same thing different name); except once, all rate payers would be issued with a small red sticker when we paid or rates and if we showed that on our windscreen, all dumping was free plus you could get a ute load of mulch for free every time you took a load of green waste providing you loaded it yourself. If you wanted the machine to load it the charge was a reasonable $5. Well now we have the fancy new name change, to tip a ute load of garden waste costs $22 and to tip a mixed ute load of waste is $94. Is it any wonder that a lot of people now chose to dump their rubbish in bush land?

I'll finish with a few more random Neo pic's I took after the 'big clean up'

All the best, Nev.