Australian and New Zealand Gardening: BROMELIADS IN SUMMER ..2014, 1 by splinter1804

splinter1804 wrote:
Hi everyone - Well it's over for another year and we can once more settle back into our normal routines again, unless of course you're brave enough to attend some of the Boxing Day Sales in the city with the other millions of people.

We had a busy day yesterday, firstly out to our daughter and son-in-laws place to see our youngest grandson open his presents from Santa, and then breakfast.

Christmas lunch at my daughter and son-in law's with her father-in-law and sister and brother in law and associated kids, and then finished off with dinner last night at our place for all our immediate local family where we watched the three grandsons opening their presents from Nanny and Poppy and then a phone call via Skype to our other son and his family in Bali.

Today, I'm going to relax and get back into the re-potting routine.

Teresa - Yes I make the sweet and sour from scratch from a recipe my friend Stephen Tang gave me when he had the local Chinese Restaurant. I understand exactly what you're saying about some of the sickly, cloying stuff some of the restaurants call sweet and sour sauce; it's bloody awful!

Before he left, Stephen gave me a recipe for his two most popular sauces; Sweet and Sour and his popular Lemon Sauce, and I've been making them ever since with a few minor additions of my own.

Neo. 'Kybosh' along with many of the others from Allan Freeman's 957 registered hybrids had unusual colour combinations; Neo. 'Lone Pine' is another of my favourites which can be seen at: http://registry.bsi.org/?genus=NEOREGELIA&id=5481#5481

Another which comes to mind is Neo. 'Bedazzled'
See: http://registry.bsi.org/?genus=NEOREGELIA&id=3091#3091

Shirley - Nice of you to drop in with your Christmas wishes and I hope we continue to hear more from you and see lots more pictures of your wonderful plants.

I know everyone's very busy at this time of the year and a lot don't have time to post messages but to all our regulars, please have a nice time during the festivities and be careful on the roads as unfortunately there's still a lot of idiots driving around. Even after all the holiday period safety campaigns, the police are still booking many drivers who continue to drink and drive and not wear seat belts......When will some people learn? But then my old boss always reckoned that no matter how hard you try, you can't legislate against stupidity.

Just to brighten our day even more, here's a few pictures of some nice brom's taken by my Thai friend at a bromeliad show in Thailand. Pic.1 is Neo.'carolinae x concentrica with almost perfect round shape and great leaf stacking (check out the spiral formation), Pic.2 is Neo.'Granada', Pic.3 is Neo.'Kahala Dawn', Pic.4 is Neo.'Inkwell' albo-marginata and Pic.5 is Neo.'Lambert's Pride' x carcharodon.

All the best, Nev.