Hey Nev, very cool indeed. I had to show the wife what a birdbath looks like where you live. Un-bee-lievable! Are those V. guttata's floral bracts just old or are they really that white?

Nev, thats what I call a garden tour. Love the animals aren't they great? Keep the pictures coming. Brightened my winter day :)

Hi Gonz,

I have two clones of guttata, the one pictured which is true colour and another which has more of a pinkish cast through the bracts.

HDD they were mostly old random pic's I posted, but I'll see if I can load some more recent ones onto Photo Bucket and post them in a few days.

All the best, Nev

Hi Nev
Beautiful garden and plants. That's some of the most colorful recurvatas I have seen. What a great ground cover. We have some nice birds here but nothing like yours. I've heard they can be destructive, do you have that problem?
What ginger is that? Is it the kahili? Wish I could landscape with my bromeliads but winters are to harsh here.
Thanks for a beautiful tour.
Best
Bob

Hi Bob,

Thanks for the compliment.

No we don't have any trouble with the birds I feed here but the occasional visit from Sulphur Crested Cockatoos can cause havoc. In the past they've eaten the TV aerial, chewed the wooden fascia and even tried the architraves around one of the windows.

This all started when a well meaning neighbour started feeding them and they became so demanding that if she wasn't there to feed them on time they would land on the window sill and start tapping on the window. If they got no response they would start chewing bits of her house and after a while she got the message and stopped feeding them. However, ocasionally the odd one will sometimes still pay us a visit, but I found they don't like being squirted with the hose so I can now get rid of them that way.

Yesterday afternoon there were about forty lorrikeets, two little corellas, six magpies, two crows (very timid), one currawong, eight crested pigeons, four galahs, two mud larks, two willy wagtails plus the resident sparrows as well as the "in house" bowerbirds who seem to live in the trees down the back and constantly steal the name tags out of my pots.

As well as these we also have a large number of frogs, quite large skinks, plus a couple of rather fat blue tongue lizards. They all seem to live in harmony and even my old dog can walk among them now and they don't move away like they did when he was younger.

As for the ginger, I don't know what type it is. A friend gave it to me and I suspect it's just a pretty common one but it has the most beautiful perfume which you can smell quite strongly just on dark or early morning and it helps keep the hot afternoon sun of my small seedlings in the little shadehouse behind it.

It's great to live with nature, and what's more it doesn't cost much.

All the best, Nev.

Wow! Nev, love your garden! Great job!

I love your garden/zoo. That is the one thing that is an added attraction of a garden is the wildlife it attracts.
Nothing exoctic here in my garden but an abundance of native birds and lots of different lizards.
Bob that ginger is Hedychium gardnerianum. Even our heat here doesn't stop it growing and flavoring the yard with its wonderful fragrance.

Hi HDD,

Thanks for the ID on the ginger.

All the best, Nev.

Nice photos, Nev, especially the lorikeets and the brilliant red recurvatas! I'll take some of each.

wow. I just started learning about Broms and came across this post. I cant believe the collection you have. Your property looks like heaven.I dont know a single plant you have there except for the grass but I am blown away at your work. AAAMMMAAAZZING!! What country are you in? Get ready for a new neighbor because im moving in!!!

Hi makgalleries,

If you intend moving in, you'd better be prepared to travel 'cause I live in Australia, yes that's right, "down under"

All the best,Nev.

Nev, please let me know when you and your family are travelling. I can do a house sitting, but in your yard :)

Great show Nev...some excellent specimens on show there...I especially like the recurvata's in the tree, not often seen like that, though I guess you have plenty to go around !!

I'm also interested in what looks like your seedling house lurking in the background of a couple of pics ?..have you got any more "closer-up" photos of it. Understand if you have some secrets and works-in-progress in there that aren't ready for sharing yet, it's more the construction, materials and layout you've used, as I may be looking at doing something similar soon as an "expansion project" for maaaaaaaaany little pots that are on their way.

Cheers
Graeme

Hi Graeme,

There's no secrets in there, just a lot of overcrowding. The places in which I grow my seedlings are basically in five different locations.

1. "The Maternity Ward" which s a North-East facing closed in porch, where the seeds are first put into take-away containers, and left to start to grow.

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2. "The Pre-School" is another porch on the South side of the house where the containers are opened up, plants hardened off a bit and then the strongest are selected and planted into other containers (about 15 per container).

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3. "The Kindergarten" This is an area in the middle of my shade house where they stay once most are in individual small pots or tubes and stay here until they are large enough to be potted on.

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4. "The Primary School" (the area you mentioned in the pic) This is where they are put into 3" size pots and grown on until ready for the final repotting into 4"-5" pots. This was once a finch aviary I built for the kids when they were young. When they grew up, married and left home, it became a shade house (with a very low roof on which I am constantly bumping my head)

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5. Finaly the "High School" This is where they are hung from every available position. They stay there until they flower and are good enough to be "keepers", are given away, sold or binned.

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Some of the "keepers" I have grown:

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And that's about it!

I'm just a back yard hobbiest who gets immense enjoyement from growing bromeliads from seed. I sell a few plants to pay for pots and potting mix, but pretty well everything else (except what I find a place in the yard for) are given away to friends or binned.

Out of necessity, pretty well everything in my yard is made from "left-overs" and re-cycled material where possible except the shade cloth. A lot of my benches are made from old security doors and the points from which I hang plants are old off-cuts of steel strip or wire mesh.

That's about it folks

All the best, Nev.

Hi Nev,
Thanks for the tour and pcs. You sure have a good wee set-up there...and some good looking offspring! Looks like you have a bit of room to play with, which is nice...that appears to be my biggest problem..ROOM to build new structures in places that will get enough light....without totally making the place look like Sunday market full of shabby lean-to's and getting divorced that is !
Cheers
Graeme

Hi Graeme,

Unfortunately what you say about me having a bit of room to play with is not quite true. I just have the normal house block 50' x 150' (I'm an old carpenter and still use the old measurement)

True there's still a bit of grass for the grand kids and my dog to run around on, but in my opinion far too much when it has to be mowed. I'd love to turn it over to more brom. garden but the CEO says NO!

My Dad always said that unless you were on a farm, grass was a waste of time as you couldn't eat it, you couldn't cut it and put it in a vase, and you had to waste a couple of hours good fishing time every month mowing it. So why not turn it over to veges or flowers?

Even so, I still manage to enjoy my little collection of brom's and it just means I have to be more ruthless and cull harder,and that's the bit I still can't get used to.

All the best, Nev.

Nev, just enjoyed this post as if it was made yesterday! What a thrill to go through your garden, shade house and school! Just lovely, every single bit of it. Thanks for posting!

Carol in Jacksonville, Florida

Fantastic pics!

Hi everyone.

I didn't think people were still looking at this old post and I'm surprised at the comments.

A lot of water has passed under the bridge since I posted these pic's and I'm now 78 years old and parts of me are breaking down which makes it pretty hard for me to manage my collection as well as I would like to these days.

However I still get a lot of enjoyment from my plants and I'll also enjoy sharing some of them with you all once again although it seems that Houzz has now put a limit on the number of pictures I can post. So if I get enough followers I can always post some more.

Since I last posted, many of the seedlings in these pictures have matured and some of the better ones have been registered with the BCR so these are what I'll share with you today.

Sorry, but it looks like Houzz doesn't let me load pictures any more.

All the best, anyway.

Nev,

Say it ain't so, Nev. You posting pix is a big part of why I come here. Have you contacted Houzz?

tj