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

splinter1804 wrote:
Hi everyone – Seems like the weather report was right as the storms have returned and it rained again over night. After an appointment this morning it seems like the remaining day will be spent in the garage potting brom's and preparing sale plants for the meeting tomorrow.

Jean – I've posted a comparison picture of a Neo. olens (Pic.1) which won a prize at a recent show. Obviously it was judged in the species class as it isn't fair to judge species against hybrids as they usually lose out shape wise although some of the species could hold their own to hybrids, especially in colour.

I've also included 3 different orlandianas from my file pic's (Pic's 2, 3 and 4) They mostly belong to a friend of mine who also has an entire garden of the different types (Pic.5)

Thanks for the instructions for starting a new thread, I'll have to study them along with some trial runs and see if I can get it right before next month's thread.

Theresa – If it's spots you like I don't think you can go past some of the Billbergias such as Bill. 'Hallelujah' and its hybrids.

Colleen – Pleased to hear your back is on the mend and the Chiro. is satisfied with his work....just remember not to overdo it.

Bill. pyramidalis is a species and has been around “forever” but I don't think anything can beat it when it's in flower, is just beautiful. This is one of the reasons Allan Ladd used it in his breeding programme where he crossed Bill. pyramidalis v. pyramidalis with Bill. 'Windigig Special' and came up with some amazing results. Instead of the plain green foliage of the pyramidalis, many of the hybrids had foliage similar in colour and pattern to Bill. 'Muriel Waterman' while still retaining the same type of magnificent flower.

As well as these unexpected hybrids there were two which stood head and shoulders above the rest and they were both magnificent variegated hybrids and were registered by Ross Little as Bill.‘Allan Ladd’ (after the breeder) and Bill.‘Booyong Ladd’ after the area where Allan's nursery is located (588 Booyong Road, Booyong 2480 N.S.W.). There are pic's of both these plants in the Billbergia section of the BCR and are both worthy of a viewing.

I wouldn't be too concerned with Branden feeling the cold on his camp; in my experience (and I did a lot of camping as a young bloke) it's just as warm if not warmer in a tent than a normal house. The one exception to this was one occasion we went camping and one of our mates forgot to bring the tent and we had to make a “lean-to” out of the ground sheet and it snowed that night ….....I don't think I've ever been so cold. We couldn't come home as the water in the car radiator had frozen as well and we just had to tough it out............bugger!

As for the head lice, well they seemed to come and go at all schools (and they still do) They get passed from kid to kid and soon everyone is scratching (including the parents). These days there are effective treatments made from natural products which are much better and safer than the standard treatments used when I was a kid.

Just out of interest a bit of info from the “good old days” - "One of the common treatments for head lice was to drench the hair with a “Malathion” wash. This has since been outlawed as it's an organo-phosphate and suspected (but not proved) of being possibly carcinogenic to humans. Even when only used as a drench it can still be absorbed through the skin into the body where it can be metabolised into the more toxic malaoxon which has been shown via tests to be 61 times more toxic than malathion."

Malathion was also a very commonly used insecticide in the backyard gardens as well as agricultural crops where it was sprayed from planes over wide areas without any concern for people or cattle it may have come in contact with.

Come on Colleen; you can't tease us with a picture of a beautiful brom like that and not post the name for all to see. It's a beautiful, clean and well grown plant ...congratulations!

That's it for today and now for a few pic's. Pic.1 is the Neo species 'olens' for Jean to compare with her plant with when it colours up. The next three are all c.v's of orlandiana; Pic's 2 is 'Black Beauty', Pic.3 is 'Snowflake' and Pic.4 is 'Medio Picta. Finally, Pic.5 is my friend's “Orlandiana Garden” which I'd very much like to have in my yard but he won't give it to me.

All the best, Nev.