Free as air. That’s what tillandsias are.
“Air plants,” they’re called. They don’t quite live on air, but they can live in midair.
Air plants perch in high places and take in moisture and nutrients through their leaves, not their roots, which they use only for anchoring themselves to trees or rocks.
As houseplants, air plants are oddly charming and “one of the friendliest plants to grow,” says Wally Fox of McHenry, president of the Bromeliad Society of Greater Chicago. “They don’t need a lot of care.”
The air plant you’re most likely to recognize is Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides), the gray-green fluff that drapes atmospherically from trees in the deep South. It’s not a parasite; it takes nothing from the tree. That’s just where it hangs out.
Most tillandsias sold as houseplants are small puffs of curving, spiky leaves, with silvery Tillandsia ionantha the most common. “It looks like a little porcupine,” Fox says.
Tillandsias, which are members of the same bromeliad family as the pineapple, are native to moist, warm areas of the Americas. They do well in common household temperatures near 70 degrees.
When it comes to watering tillandsias, there are two schools: “the misters and the dunkers,” says Martha Goode of Crystal Lake, secretary of the bromeliad society.
She’s a dunker: Once a week she immerses all her air plants in rainwater for 15 minutes. Paul Scott of Gethsemane Garden Center in Chicago is a mister: He suggests spritzing three times a week.
Kate Sadowski, horticulturist with the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe, urges occasional dunking, but says a misting every couple of days is sufficient if the plants are in a relatively moist atmosphere, as they are in the garden’s greenhouses.
Bottled water, or rainwater in the summer, is better than tap water, says Michael Strickland, grower manager for Joy-Syl Foliage World, a wholesaler of air plants in Apopka, Fla. The chlorine and minerals in treated tap water can be harmful. Rainwater — which Goode collects from her gutter downspouts — contains enough nutrients so you don’t ever have to fertilize, she says.
Air circulation is important: After watering, the plants must drain and dry out thoroughly, Goode says. In the rain forest, they would be drenched in frequent rains, but then would dry in the breeze.
The other thing tillandsias need is light — bright filtered light, preferably right by a window, Sadowski says.
If air plants don’t grow in soil in pots, how do you display them? Goode keeps her collection in a basket on the windowsill. Every week after she dunks them, she rearranges them so all get light and air circulation.
You also can use waterproof glue such as Liquid Nails to fix an arrangement of air plants to a handsome branch or rock. Gethsemane sells arrangements of air plants ($9.95 to $19.95).
Sadowski says the botanic garden uses floral pins — large U-shaped wire pins, available in some crafts stores — to pin air plants to pieces of cork bark. Or you can glue tillandsias to a foam form to make a wreath or a kissing ball.
The botanic garden is displaying Christmas tree topiaries of assorted bromeliads this season, with garlands of tillandsias. They were made by tucking the plants into a network of fishing line stretched on cone-shaped metal frames packed with sphagnum moss.
You even can dangle air plants in the window from very fine, flexible wire or nylon fishing line. Just make sure you don’t tie it too tight and harm the plant.
If you have another large houseplant, such as a rubber tree, by the window, take a cue from the rain forest and perch an air plant in the crotch of a branch, Sadowski suggests. “That’s sort of how they would grow in their natural habitat,” she says. Just be careful not to position air plants near a heating vent or other heat source that would likely dry them out.
A healthy, happy tillandsia eventually will send up a bloom from its center that lasts two to three weeks. After the bloom dies, the plant will start producing little side plants — “pups,” tillandsia fanciers call them. In time, Scott says, the plant will multiply into a little colony.
When a pup is at least two-thirds the size of the mother plant, you can cut it off carefully and give it a home of its own, Scott says. In about three years, it will bloom.
“All they need is a little moisture, and they’ll live anywhere,” Strickland says. “They’re about as foolproof as you can get.”
– – –
Tips and sources
Tillandsias are easy to grow, though they live differently than most houseplants. Here are a few tips for their care.
Water: Bottled water or rainwater is better than tap water. Mist or dunk plants, then drain and let them dry out.
Air: Good circulation is essential.
Light: Provide bright filtered light, preferably right by a south or east window.
Pot and soil: None needed. Tillandsia plants perch or dangle and draw moisture and nutrients from the air.
Where to buy them:
Gethsemane Garden Center, 5739 N. Clark St., 773-878-5915.
Jamaican Gardens & Exotic Houseplants, 14595 W. Rockland Rd., Libertyville, 847-367-5570, and 8509 Frontage Rd., Morton Grove, 847-967-9360.
The Bromeliad Society of Greater Chicago (www.chicago-bromeliad.org) sells tillandsias at its booth at the Chicago Flower & Garden Show at Navy Pier (March 13 to 21; see www.chicagoflower.com).
———-
To learn more: The bromeliad society meets monthly at the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe and will host the annual meeting of the Bromeliad Society International in Rosemont Aug. 11 to 15. See the society’s Web site at www.chicago-bromeliad.org for meeting schedules and links.
