Care of Air Plant (Tillandsia)- Suggestions Needed

[M Farooq]

ASA,

Sometime ago I posted about Tillandsia, and Kaleem shb showed his huge air plants. Mine was just a tiny wall hanging plant. The problem is that the leaves are shrinking (flaccid is the right word here I guess); they are indeed green but it feels they are not healthy as I see signs of wrinkles. The instructions said "Soak the plant for 15 minutes in water" it still didn't change the "health" of the leaves.

http://www.gardeningpakistan.com/viewto ... nts#p16894

So my question to Kaleem shb and others is how often do you water and how do you water them? I simply soak the tiny plant in tap water every week. Did you ever add fertilizer to your water for feeding them?

Regards,

Farooq

[KBW]

I simply soak the tiny plant in tap water every week.

Farooq sb, Air plants do absorb lot of water directly through their leaves. Please do check if the tap water is chlorinated? If it is than it's NOT good for the plant and will kill it, ultimately. Secondly, please do check the humidity level on routine days, ie, when plant is not being watered. A higher humidity level throughout is desirable; spells of dry air will retard growth.
regards

[M Farooq]

I simply soak the tiny plant in tap water every week.

Farooq sb, Air plants do absorb lot of water directly through their leaves. Please do check if the tap water is chlorinated? If it is than it's NOT good for the plant and will kill it, ultimately. Secondly, please do check the humidity level on routine days, ie, when plant is not being watered. A higher humidity level throughout is desirable; spells of dry air will retard growth.
regards

Yes, the air is super dry here. And water is chlorinated, to avoid that I usually use water from hot - tap (cooled) assuming that dissolved chlorine is driven out. But this could be a factor of its poor health. I will post the pictures. Do you think the leaf form is okay or is it a sign of dehydration. It was soaked for many hours.

Thanks.

[KBW]

If the water used is chlorinated and air is dry than it's not a good growing environment for air plants. Tradescentias and so many other rainforest plants absorb lot of water / nutrients directly through their leaves and stems and are therefore quickly affected by harmful chemicals as compared to those plants which take bulk of nutrients from the soil.

I have seen air plants growing on the rainforest trees in their habitat. They are lush green plants and grow very well because it rains there around 275 out of 364 days in a year, temp remains between 25 to 33 degree C most of the time and humidity level is generally 50% or more, always. Outside that climate, we have to create that environment for them which is not easy all the time. With due care, they do survive but do not flourish. The picture of your plant shows a specimen that is surviving, not flourishing. But you can always create a conducive micro environment for few plants. Use distilled water or un-chlorinated water. Frequent spraying few times a day might give better results than soaking the plant in water after a week. If I can see correctly you are keeping the plant in a large size glass bottle. It's easy to maintain humidity inside this bottle. Just keep a few beautiful looking pebbles at the base and put some water in it. It will maintain humidity level. Please ensure that their is some water present in the crown, always. When the plants shows signs of growth, you may add liquid fertilizer (very diluted). Hope to see it growing well

[M Farooq]

My plant is in a glass sphere which is open on one side. Note sure about the full name of this plant otherwise life would have been easier. I was reading that distilled water is unhealthy for air plants because of osmosis process it will remove the nutrients from the plants. Nutrients move from the plant cells to "pure" water not vice versa. That's the nature's way. I will try mineral water. The idea having stones and water is quite good. This will be my next step.

On a lighter note, I was supervising a student project few years ago on investigating how the pink Kashmiri tea becomes pink? While making Kashmiri pink tea with ordinary tap water, it never worked and the colour of the tea after adding milk was always brown like normal tea. When I switched to mineral water, which is usually ozonated in Pakistan and elsewhere - pink colour! So indeed chlorination does have undesired effects in water (besides making cancer causing chemicals in drinking water- but that story is too long).

Thanks for the suggestions.