Tillandsia "Collection"

Tillandsia

Tillandsias are commonly known as the "air plant" because they don't have any roots and can be grown without any potting mix.  These are also part of the bromeliad family which is another type of popular tropical plant that you can find readily in your local grocery store or home improvement store.

Anyways, tillandsias were my first introduction to the tropical plant world.  I got my first tillandsia, I think, in second or third grade from one of my favorite stores at Pier 39 in San Francisco, called Shell Cellar. It was a little plant stuck in the hole of a purple sea urchin shell.  It was very pretty.  This first tillandsia drowned to death by my inexperience with plants.  I had the misconception that humidity meant placing the plant in an inch of water 24 hours...it is now in a better place.

Later, when my mom got her own office at work, she had and still has this obsession of placing a live plant in her office.  It is just so hard to convince her that she has a black thumb.  She has sent ferns, orchids, and bromeliads to the intensive care unit (aka my orchid growing area) for me to play doctor to the neglected plants. Anyways, back to the point, I convinced her that if she wants a plant in her office, then she should get an air plant. Even with my mom's black thumb, she was able to grow a healthy tillandsia.  Here's why:

Mom's first tillandsia with offshoot tillandsias

After some experimenting, tillandsias are one of the easiest tropical plants to take care of.
Watering: For lazy people, like me, place the entire tillandsia in lukewarm water for an hour in the morning, once a week, so the water between the leaves will evaporate by nightfall.  If water is between the leaves, this makes the plant susceptible to fungi or rot.  Fungi and/or rot = dead plant.  If you like watering, then spritz water onto the plant 2-3 times in the morning every day or every other day.   OR you can run the tillandsia under lukewarm water in the facet IN THE MORNING for a couple of seconds.  Just make sure there's not water in between the leaves.The tillandsia's leaves will turn from a olive color to a grass green colored when watered thoroughly.

Flowering Tillandsia

Light: Keep it bright and shady.  There should be light, but not the type of sunlight that would blind you if you read a book under it.  My mom had been able to grow it under her regular office light with no problem.  I've been able to grow it alongside my orchids with no problem
Flowering: Oh yes, tillandsias do flower.  Normally when you buy tillandsias they're not in flower, but you can make them flower.  They flower when they are exposed to the gas called ethylene which is readily found in ripening fruit especially bananas.  My mom wanted a flowering tillandsia, so I placed the tillandsias alongside the bananas in our fruit bowl in almost complete darkness. Two weeks later, there was a pink flower growing in between the leaves.  Unfortunately, once tillandsias do flower, no more leaves can grow from the mother plant, but little tillandsias will grow from the side of the mother plant which can be easily divided for more flowers and tillandsias.