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

splinter1804 wrote:
Hi everyone – I’m a bit late today (Sunday) as I slept in this morning and then had breakfast and started re-potting which I’ve been doing all day. I set myself a target as I usually do, but this time I reached it and everything I had out to re-pot by 5.00pm has been done and watered and now it’s 4.47pm and I just remembered I haven’t checked DG today.

A big good day to anyone unable to post for various reasons and has anyone heard how Dianne is and how her arm is healing. Hi Dianne if you’re looking in, drop us a line and tell us how you’re getting on.

Colleen – Your talk of the garlic prawns has me drooling even though I’m allergic to them and can’t let them touch me. Boys being boys though, I thought your two would have eaten them all instead of leaving some for Bianca and the boys. (By the way, who is Bianca and the boys, more relatives or just family friends?)

I’m sure you’ll find lots of uses for your mini hot house, they’re very popular up here now also, and a lot of my friends grow their small seedlings in them as well as any difficult to strike cuttings of plants. Just don’t do what one of my friends did and put it where it can get the full summer sun on it; he cooked everything!

We’ve had great weather here also, nice sunny days in the mid to high twenties with a little overnight rain; very different to the heatwave conditions two years ago.

Teresa – What you call a dog park sounds more like a “holiday resort for dogs”. It must be wonderful to have such a park to exercise your dog. There’s lots of trouble going on here at the moment with dog owners having to leash their dogs wherever they walk them and even the two or three beaches that were leash free at certain times of the day are now having more restrictions placed upon them even though they aren’t patrolled or used for swimming. I’m sure all of these regulations are made up by council employees who hate dogs and don’t realize they have to be able to exercise freely somewhere……wankers!

Burgundy x Gold Fever was a last minute decision to make and although I only had a few seeds germinate, the one I posted is the pick of them. The shape isn’t too bad I guess, but I was disappointed there wasn’t more spotting like the Gold Fever parent, but I’ll reserve judgment until I get the first pup to maturity as they are usually better than the original seedling.

I must get more details from you about that science experiment you mentioned as I’m sure my grandsons would find it fascinating, as would I. I missed out on a lot of this good stuff in high school as they made me do bloody French instead of science, we had to take what we were given in those days without a choice so they could equalise the class numbers.

It wasn’t until Dad kicked up a fuss with the Head Master and told him that French and Ancient History wouldn’t help me to build houses and as my ambition was to be a carpenter, he asked if things couldn’t be changed around. Fortunately the Head Master was able to make decisions for himself without the aid of “procedures” such as everyone is controlled by today and it was because of this that I was allowed to do woodwork and tech drawing instead of Ancient History and French…….. When I left school I did do my apprenticeship as a carpenter, but after a few more years in a very “shaky” building industry, I opted for industrial ambulance work instead, and stayed at that until I retired.

While we’re talking about garlic prawns, your chicken in the slow cooker sounds pretty good also, even if you did carve it up with a spoon.

I’ll have to have a break here as my finger’s starting to ache a bit as I probably overdid things a bit today, with all the re-potting so I’ll finish this off in the morning if I don’t sleep in again.

Hi again – Here we are Monday again, another beautiful fine new day. My fingers are a bit stiff this morning after all the re-potting yesterday and I had to do my morning exercises under warm water earlier than I usually do to get things loosened up again but the fingers are working OK now so I’d better finish this post and have breakfast, as I can’t wait to get back out and into more re-potting.

Joe – HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU; HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU; HAPPY BIRTHDAY “ORCHID JOE”, HAPPY BIRTTHDAY TO YOU.

Trish – I’m pleased you had a nice Christmas with all of your friends albeit a very busy one and today you have Joe’s birthday to celebrate, so Happy Birthday Joe; I hope you get a nice Paph. for a present.

Yes, it’s great to be able to get back into the re-potting again, and at last I can see a bit of headway in what I’ve done, I’ll take a pic today to bring you all up to date with the project. Although I enjoy re-potting, and I could happily do it all day every day, it’s all spoilt by knowing I have to find somewhere to put all these plants and I’ve just about run out of room.

I look very much forward to seeing “Trish, the Lady Python Wrestler” when it is released, hopefully sometime soon. As you say the python in the pic I sent was a big one and I’ll bet you wouldn’t be too keen to wrestle it.

As for the article I sent on potting mixes; although it’s great and educational to try and experiment with different mixes, just remember that all of the mixes in that article were made up with our local conditions in mind and may not suit your warmer climate. The thing is, I’ve found brom’s will grow in practically anything as long as it’s well drained, watered occasionally and has plenty of good air circulation.

I’m looking forward to pic’s of the Water Tractor as I have a heap of Bunnings Vouchers which I got for Christmas and they’re burning a hole in my pocket.

I like Neo ‘Black Forest’ also; even though it’s nothing special, I find the dark colour does help to break up and give a lift to the other colours which can become a bit monotonous after a while. As for Neo.’Ashanti’, well I have two of them and both are different, which gets back to what Derek Butcher of ’Uncle Derek’ fame says; “NEVER TRUST THE NAME ON A NAME TAG”. I know I got one from Sue but I don’t remember where the other one came from; I know it would have been a swap but unfortunately I didn’t write the name of who I got it from on the back of the tag as I usually do, so it still remains a mystery.

I love the picture of your little girls below, it looks like they are living in a holiday resort just like Teresa’s “Sugar”. There’s something very special about seeing pets who are properly cared for and says a hell of a lot about their owners; some in fact are more than pets, they are more like the family’s children.

I know your "Peking Duck" is good, but I’m not too sure about Joe’s “Turducken” as it sounds too much like another language meaning it's made from “Duck Turd”, so in my opinion, a bit chancy; but the Cherry Pudding with Custard sounds pretty choice.

Trish I think your "New Years Resolution" should be to post all pic's the right way around as they're wearing out this old blokes neck. Just the same the first one definitely illustrates what it's like to be living in paradise; certainly something nice to look forward to each day.

That's a beautifully coloured Phrag. of Joe's in the second picture; I don't know that I've ever seen one with that unusual colour combination before, certainly good for the eyes, and the girls in Pic.3; what can I say that hasn't been said about them before except SPOILT, SPOILT, SPOILT, but also very much loved.

Don't apologise for old pic's, because it's great to be able to revisit pic's we've seen before and we always seem to see something we don't remember seeing previously for example, in Pic.5, what is the white leaved Neoregelia with green margins in front of the two Vrieseas in the middle of the picture?

Brian - Pleased to see you survived Christmas OK but I feel sorry for your friend with gout. It can be terribly painful and I remember our next door neighbour once telling me he had it in his big toes and it was so painful he couldn't even stand the weight of a sheet on it in bed of a night. It was once believed to be caused by drinking too much alcohol but it seems that's a fallacy.

Gout is a actually a form of arthritis associated with high blood levels of a compound called uric acid, which is a normal by-product of the breakdown of food in the body. In particular, uric acid is generated by the metabolism of compounds called purines, which are present in organ meats (e.g. liver and kidneys), seafood (especially anchovies), and some vegetables e.g. asparagus and mushrooms and is also believed to be aggravated by the acid in raw tomatoes.

Painting, painting, painting; what a terrible thought to bugger up a nice Christmas break. My house just about needs re-painting also and now and because I can't climb a ladder anymore I have to pay a painter to do it. The hardest part is convincing them to use oil based paints as they believe that acrylic paints are superior in every way. The thing is, if you have a weather board home, oil based paints are what you should use, as the linseed oil in the paint soaks in and helps preserve the timber whereas acrylic paints stay on the surface and are just "colouring". Unfortunately all people think of is the ease by which acrylic can be applied and not it's lack of preservation properties. The manufactures guarantee it for ten years which is good, but my house was painted eighteen years ago and is just about due to be done again, with another oil based paint as before.

Brian I think the name of the plant in your first pic is correct Neo. hoehneana x Fireball; I know "hoehneana" sounds unusual, but it is a Neo species and as your plant appears to be a miniature, it makes sense as Neo.'Fireball' is a miniature as well.

Neo. Groucho is one of the smaller hybrids bred by Chester Skotak from (carolinae variegated x Hannibal Lector) x Tiger Cub (a miniature) and registered in 2005. It has similar colours to the 21 other registered hybrids using (carolinae variegated x Hannibal Lector) as one of the parents.

The plant in your third picture looks like the species Neoregelia ampullacea which is one of the "true miniatures'. Pic.4 I'm not sure about, but could be a young Neo Gespacho which can be quite variable and often looks nothing like the picture on the BCR.

Your Pic 5 is great to see, and it seems that schools and pre-schools are very much encouraging the artistic talents of their young pupils. My older grandsons (4 and 6) are now bringing me pictures as well and even though I'm not a fan of modern art, its worth encouraging when you think of "Blue Poles".

If you don't remember,this was purchased by the National Gallery of Australia in 1973 for A$1.3 million and is now valued at much, much more. Interestingly, the gallery's director at the time, James Mollison, was not able to authorise purchases over $1 million, so the acquisition was approved by Prime Minister Gough Whitlam which caused an uproar from the general public at the time because he was said to be squandering public money. So let's hope that sometime during their lifetime, one of our grandkids can turn out something as good as this which is increasing in value all the time .

Sorry for getting off the track on so many occasions this morning but back on again (almost) with four out of five pic's to finish with. Pic No.4 was "off the track again" and was from my eldest grandson (6) done with an old tennis ball...... Now why didn't I think of that?

Pic.1 is a nice fully mature Neo. 'Rain Cloud' in flower, Pic.2 ,3 and 4 are three more of Peter Coyle's wonderful new Vriesea hybrids and Pic.4 may not be 'Blue Poles' but I still love my grandson's masterpiece.

All the best, Nev.