Hi Graeme, Great eye catching pic's. The white ensign certainly is a stand-out that jumps up and says, "Look at me". It reminds me of the words "whiter than white" that were used in some of the old washing powder commercials, and with that waxy type of surface, I can centainly see how you were initially suspicious of it being some gardner's joke. As Vriesea says, "enjoy it while it lasts", but at least you always have the pic to look at and drool. Thanks for sharing, All the best, Nev.

Hi Brom adorer A friend of mine has young tilly seedlings growing all over the branches of a bottle brush tree he has in his garden as the result of self sown seeds from plants he mounted on the branches in the past, so that is maybe another option for you to try. Firstly let me say that I don't usually grow Tillys and would never try to claim the success growing seed demonstrated by my northern NSW and Qld neighbours. However a friend gave me some Til. Butsii seed a while back and I tried it using the same method I use for the Neo's, i.e. on top of coco-peat in a plastic take-away container. In this case I used 75% coco-peat to 25% Perlite to open the mix up a bit more than I usually do and just scattered the seed on top. They did germinate and grow, albiet very, very slowly and after about a year I thinned them out, but their growth seemed to stop at that stage and they seemed to have remained at this size ever since. They also had a setback last week when the strong winds blew the container off the shelf on which it was situated.Now that they've had a "shake up" I may now try transplanting them onto some tree fern fibre, cork or other type of bark to see if this starts them growing again, so only time will tell. They cost me nothing so anything's worth a try. Below is a pic. of them, and they must now be about a couple of years old and as you can see, still very small.This method of growing is pretty slow for me but then it suits me, as I'm pretty slow myself these days. All the best, Nev.

oh ok i want to give these beauties as much tlc as i can and i hope they apprieate it i spent the two hottest days we have had this year so far digging into clay and brash soil i ache all over but it should look good i really am amazed that i now have a pile of soil that im sure would fill the hole twice over i will post pics when i have got it somewhere near finished it will have teresterial ferns planted down the sides and some in the bottom

Roses and ferns are not a cpmbination I like. That said, roses require sun and ferns shade. Ferns don't need a groundcover; just mulch.