Hi Nev et al. My first thoughts were also Ae. ramosa var. festiva - but I was looking for more prominent black spines too, not obvious in your photos. I have grown Ae. ramosa var. festiva for several years, and they usually grow larger, but I have occasionally flowered some when they were the same size as yours. It's a great brom. The leaf colour and large dark spines are what attracted me to it. The flowering stage is pretty, but the long-lasting berry stage is much more colourful and impressive. I have seen a smaller, very similar Aechmea sold in Queensland and N.S.W. as Ae. 'Pink Phase', but I have long suspected it is actually Ae. ramosa var. festiva, and have never personally grown one by that name. Maybe the lack of prominent black spines, and smaller size, IS the Aechmea correctly (?) named 'Pink Phase' - also a cultivar of ramosa. Has anyone grown and compared the two? I agree with Nick that it is rather similar to Ae. 'David Barry', a suspected hybrid of ramosa var. festiva. My 'David Barry' flushes pinkish in bright light, but not as solid in its pinkness as var. festiva, with the mainly lime-green leaves still obvious. I don't think any Aechmea by the name of 'Yellowstone' has been sold in Australia. Anyone? Below are a few photos of Ae. ramosa var. festiva which I have grown under various conditions - for you to compare. This was my first one, already large when I bought it pre-flowering. I whacked it in a tree, and it looked fantastic! This one is grown in dappled shade. Flowering stage. Same plant forming berries. This one grew quite large (approx. 70cm/28" wide). Grown in much brighter light - berry stage. This last one was also pot-grown, with little fert, grown in bright diffused light in my shade house. It was only a little over 12"/30cm wide at flowering. The same smaller plant as above, at berry stage, and moved to the garden. All of the above are subsequent offsets from my original plant of Ae. ramosa var. festiva. Do you think we have a match, Nev? Has yours got those same great spines? K :)

Weird - I responded to RH yesterday, saw the response, and it's gone! Let's try this again, LOL. Spartan is lovely - great pic! I don't think it's a match for mine, as I don't remember yellow or orange on the hafts and shoulders, and no white below the beards. But I'll keep it in mind, and have another look when mine blooms again. Thanks! Iris Gal, one of these years I'll get around to organizing my photos - I still have pics from the 2003 National I need to organize. Yikes. I have a good excuse, though - since then, we've moved twice (well, 3 times if you count a temporary apartment) - from VA to OH (2004) to IL (2006). For DH's job. I told him if I have to move my irises again, I might be forced to shoot him! I am pretty excited about this red NOID - obviously, it's not RED, but as red irises go, this one is pretty nice, and it seems to grow well, too. Any bearded iris that can survive the conditions down by the creek for a few years is a keeper! (I planted some JIs down there last summer and they croaked!) And a red to boot? Amazing - my other reds don't grow that well. Am I going to go into business? Well, maybe, someday. It'd be fun to make this addiction pay for itself, that's for sure! For now, I'll trade or give away the extras, and have thought of selling some in a garage sale or at the local farmer's market. Sadly, the number used to be over 500, but I lost more in the moves than I've added. But that number will go back up, I'm sure! Mostly I have a lot because I'm an addict - belong to AIS, HIPS and TBIS (need to join the other sections, too) and just finished the last of my apprentice judge's requirements last month, so next year I'll be an accredited judge. And as a judge, one is "required" to grow new cultivars for evaluation. Oh, darn. ;-) Diana

I recently had to deal with the next door neighbor of a renatl property I own. They called early in the morning when a tree fell in a thunderstorm across their driveway. They seemed oblivious to the fact that the portion of the tree on their land was their problem. I drove over and dragged the branch out of the way into the street. That weekend I cut up the branch, and felled the rest of the tree (a 30 year old Bradford Pear). I drilled the stump and applied herbicide since Bradford Pears are well know for sprouting from their roots. The herbicide needs to be allowed time to travel out to the roots to make sure everything dies. Neighbor has decided to sell their house, and hired a service to grind the stump on my property. I drop by on Wednesday to check that the brush has been picked up to find the stump ground. I have not bothered to do anything else to remove the small sprouts all over the place from the root system. It looks pretty bad, and they have commented once. I told them if they had not screwed around with someone else's property this would not have occurred, and if I caught them trespassing I would swear out a warrant. The tenant's have told me they have been a royal PITA for a long time, and will be happy to see them depart. They have a problem cleaning up after their dog. I would send the RE agent an estimate for the requested work, with a cc to the broker. Hopefully the agent has a short career.

Arizona is a big source of steer manure. This is collected in feed lots where the animals are fed a high grain finishing diet that tends to cause the formation of urinary calculi, which can clog urethras (urethrae?), especially in steers which get a huge physical insult to their urination system when they are gelded. Google "waterbelly". To reduce this really nasty potential problem, the animals have large amounts of salt added to their feed, simply to encourage drinking and the resultant necessary frequent urination. Huge amounts. The steers also get free access to salt blocks because if they didn't they'd lap up urine (for the salt content) as they're salt-lovin' fools! The result is that bags of steer manure, "composted" or not, with added non-steer compost or not, has a LOT of sodium chloride salt. This is not too much of a problem unless you put a lot on your garden. Then it could screw things up. Just to be fair, steer/cow/goat/chicken/rabbit/alpaca manures are indeed "biosolids". They just don't carry the same level of "EWWW Factor" that growing your carrots in a city's highly processed syphilitic diarrhea has. You gotta draw the line somewhere on what you're willing to take literally shoved down your throats by those corporate ^$$holes who don't give one single damn about you or yours. That may sound bitter.