Australian and New Zealand Gardening: BROMELIADS FOR MARCH ....2014, 1 by splinter1804

splinter1804 wrote:
Hi everyone – Once more the end of the week is upon us so I have just today to finish off the current “reno” I'm working on if I'm to keep to my plan. Just mainly a bit of tidying up and finishing touches and replacement of plants and it's done – hopefully I'll have some “after” pic's as well.

Cody – I don't think your new foal looks on you so much as a “chew toy”, more like a “second Mum”.

Theresa – What a versatile girl you are, dog's, brom's and now horses. Nothing like a bit of variety.

Trish – Nice to see you've been able to fit a quick post into your busy working week, I'll bet you're looking forward to the weekends now more than you ever did before.

Lots of rain over the weekend may spoil your time in the garden but at least it will do the garden a lot of good and give you a chance to relax a bit and recharge your batteries. Your mention about the snakes in your yard (even if they don't have a fatal bite) and your concern for the dogs reminded me of what happened to a friend of mine down at Jasper's Brush where he has a farm on low lying land close to creeks and a bit of a swamp.

He was very concerned for his two year old son as they were seeing black snakes in the yard every week or so, it wasn't the same snake every time as they were different sizes and his wife (a city girl) was really starting to “freak out”. As they are both animal lovers and respect nature, he didn't want to revert to shooting the snakes (although it's illegal, when your child is at risk, legalities go out the window) but decided to look for a better alternative. As it wasn't just a “one off”, catching the snake and relocating it wasn't an option, as there were plenty of others waiting to take its place.

In the end he saw an add for some solar powered “snake repellers” in a gardening magazine and bought some, and he hasn't seen a snake in the yard since. (There are still plenty of snakes in the nearby paddocks around the swamp but not in his yard.

He is convinced these things work even though initially he thought they may have just been some sort of “sales gimmick”, so maybe they're worth trying in your yard as you're close to wet lands.

He bought them from a company that started out with non poisoning treatment for termites (the same as we successfully use at the museum), they then went into “mossie traps” and now these solar powered “snake repellers”. Probably worth checking out and details can be found at http://www.envirobug.com.au FREECALL 1800 858 977 …...I've sent you a D-Mail as well.

A nice variety of pic's you've posted this morning; Neo.'Sam Smith' I have (thanks to you) and it's growing very well and will mature next spring I expect, (and I can't wait), Ae.'Foster's Freckles' I also have and that came to me as a NOID from a friend in Victoria. Although it 's growing well and the spotted leaves are looking great, there's still no sign of a flower.

Ae. 'Chantinii' are some of my favourite plants, but unfortunately I can't grow them here as they don't like the cold winters. Fortunately I can still get my “fix” while ever you, Ian, Tash and some of the other “northerners” keep posting pic's of your plants

I love your plant of Neo. 'Ink Spots', it's one I don't have and one I've never seen down this way so I must ask you to put my name on your pup waiting list please. When I checked it up on the BCR just now I see it was imported into Australia from USA with just the formula name, Neo. smithii x Neo pauciflora, and as you can see both of these parents are species which proves there is still good options available to growers using species in their breeding programmes.

Neo.'Ink Spots' looks a bit similar in colour to Neo.'Blueberry muffin' and Neo.'Blueberry Smoothie' which are both hybrids produced by Lisa Vinzant of Hawaii. In both cases Neo. smithii was used somewhere in their breeding and it seems from this that smithii usually passes on its spotted colouring to its babies and the likeness is quite incredible. The interesting thing is that two different Neo. smithii hybrids were crossed together to produce 'Blueberry Smoothie' which surprisingly resulted in a plant with spineless leaves.

Finally your collage of NOIDS is nice and certainly a bit unusual colour-wise, but I have no idea of any names for them. I would be inclined to try one of the green ones in as much light as it can tolerate; just a “hunch”, but I think it could produce more yellow in the colour as I think there is a vague resemblance to Neo. kautskyi in the leaf patterns and there's always a possibility this may be in its breeding somewhere as there are five registered BCR hybrids using kautskyi as a parent and very likely there are many more which are unregistered.....Could be an interesting experiment.

Wendy – I feel sorry for kids today as there is too much reliance put on computers in schools and if they're not careful, instead of the student using the computer as just another tool to aid learning it will become so much of an obsession that the student will forget how to use the most important computer of all ..…. their BRAIN!

My grandson started pre-school seven weeks ago and already he has a half hour every week on the bloody computer. My next grandson started kindergarten this year and he uses the computer at school every second day and the third grandson who has just started second class (sorry “year 2”) uses one every day.

I was disgusted to hear that students are allowed to opt out of mathematics in year ten if they so desire and its' no longer a compulsory HSC subject; what ever happened to reading, writing and arithmetic? A lot of teenagers you see today can't write, they only print and if they are shown a hand written document they back away as though they were being given a spider to hold as they exclaim in disbelief, “I can't read this, it's running writing” as though it's some form of ancient hieroglyphics. As for reading, well they are all very proficient in the “texting language”, but give them a book in the English language and they're buggered!

I have a Primary School Headmaster living next door and he agrees, it's a disgrace the way the basic are being dropped from the curriculum and what's more he was embarrassed to admit to me that he has teachers in his school that never did maths past year 10, and some of these are teaching our kids and grand kids maths; I mean what chance the kids got? If all the computers in the country blew up tomorrow everyone would be buggered except "old farts" like me who can still do things the “snail way”.

See what you've done Wendy, you've got me back on my soap box again, and I was going so well too.

Nice pic's you've posted today and congratulations, you've only got one out of four sideways. Ha! Ha!

That's a nice plant of Ae. orlandiana 'Snowflake' you've posted there. I seem to remember that as being one of the plants I have, however at this stage there's none with that much white showing and that's what I meant yesterday when I said that the colours are constantly changing. Maybe I'll do a little experiment and select three different orlandianas, grow them in an area side by side and photograph them each month for a year and then compare the results and I'm sure that will substantiate what I'm saying.

Ae. 'Ensign' which is an albo-marginated form of Ae. orlandiana, is always a popular plant and I can sell them as fast as I can grow them. There is also a variegated form which looks like a reversal of the markings on the 'Ensign' and although quite popular, not so much as the albo-marginated form. A funny thing happened at out annual show last year when one of our long time members had an Ae.'Ensign' which grew an albino pup (I posted a pic previously). She cut it from the plant and tossed it in the bin and unbeknown to her, her husband retrieved it, potted it up and entered it in the show in the Aechmea section (as a joke). Obviously the judges disqualified it knowing what it was; but it proved the most popular plant in the show from the public's point of view and I'm sure almost everyone who saw it took a pic of it.

I'm always interested in bi-generic hybrids and the one you've posted is no different. What more do you know about its breeding, is it a Neomea? If so, do you know the parentage?

Well that's it for another day; best wishes to anyone on the sick list, and get well soon and we hope to see you back here posting again in the near future. Just for a change today I'll post five pic's of some of Peter Coyle's Vriesea hybrids from New Zealand, just to make you collective mouths drool.

All the best, Nev.