Let's All Breathe: The Oxygen Corner

I was shocked and saddened to learn that oxygen levels in some of our megacities have plummeted to around 12-15% (USA's OSHA says that oxygen levels below 19.5% are hazardous to our health). Clearly, we need more plants, particularly if we live in a megacity. As I've written before, I believe Tillandsias have a unique role in our future. We can keep so many of them indoors, and, without the fuss of dirt, they filter our air and give us oxygen! That's why some wise Chinese are using Spanish Moss as full window-screens in their apartments, and why I keep growing and talking about Tillandsias to anyone who can tolerate my monologues....

A small room in our house was lacking plant life, so I created an "Oxygen Corner":

Some great books (on gardening and botany of course), a row of lovely Lithops, and then Tillies and African Violets (because they are so pretty) make this corner fun. I made the ceramic tiles to hang the Tillies on, and I've also got an orchid on the right, because their flowers smell like coconut, which I love. I really don't know to what extent this little corner filters the room's air, or how much oxygen these little plants add, but it's a lovely corner to contemplate when reading, and I figure, every room can use an oxygen corner.

The Annual Garden Tally: So What Am I Growing, Anyway?

I finally got around to my annual plant tally this week, and here are the results:
Type of Plant/Number of Plant

Lithops: 48. About a third now live outdoors in the ground rather than in pots. The seem to like it out there.

Tillandsias: 97. Yup, I'm closing in on 100. Good grief, somebody stop me! Most live indoors on my CD tower scaffolding, with about 7 living outside. Here's a shot from watering day (done outdoors, obviously).

Mesembs-That-Are-Not Lithops: 28
This includes quite a few Pleiospilos, Aloinopsis, Argyroderma, Marlothistella, and of course, Babytoes (Fenestraria). Others, too. About half live indoors, and half live outside.

Cacti: Mostly Mammillaria or hairy types, 17 all together....

So that's the tally, and obviously, I'd better get to watering these guys! Though my plants don't demand a lot of attention, with this many, it does add up. But hey, there's always room for one more, right? And we all need oxygen....

Weird Wednesday: The Evil Weevil

Pensive Tuesday got pre-empted by Weird Wednesday, which is possible if you believe, like Dr.  Who, that linear time is an illusion....

Anyway, while I was vacationing in South Florida, one of my favorite places on the planet, I visited the exquisite Morikami Japanese Gardens in Delray Beach. Here's the famous Red Bridge:

Morikami Japanese Gardens, Delray Beach, MR 2013

I've painted and photographed this bridge too many times to count...such a peaceful place! When someone mentions Amida Buddha's Western Paradise, I think of this garden.

And now the gardens have an extra delight. Tillies! They have added dozens of Tillandsias to the gardens, and it really enhances the experience. After all, these are New World plants that deserve to be showcased.

But in every story, there is a villain. And in South Florida, that villain is the Evil Weevil. You can read the details from  the University of Florida here:
http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/orn/m_callizona.htm

Metamasius callizona  first showed up in South Florida in 1989, and hailed from Mexico. It loves to eat Tillies the way people love to eat Krispy Kremes. In fact, it attacks all sorts of bromeliads, and is now in the Everglades. Some Tillandsias are more resistant than others, but none seem to be completely immune. The weevil is spreading through Florida and is becoming a huge problem for Tillies and their gardeners.... Here's the distribution map from UF:



If you click on the UF link above, you can see what the critters look like, what their egg cases look like, and what they do to the poor Tillies. The photos are too gruesome for this blog.

So it's another case of be very careful what we bring into our gardens. Some species really need to stay home. Especially weevils. As of now, the Tillandsias of the Morikami, and my garden, are fine. But I'm certainly on the lookout for Evil Weevils.

Tillandsia capitata (Peach Variety)

I will probably feature several Tillies this month instead of just the one, because this is their blooming season, and when they bloom, they color up and do all sorts of other wonderful things. Take Tillandsia capitata, for example---

Tillandsia capitata, peach variety, MR 2013

 

That is some lovely color! T. capitata hails from Mexico and Cuba and was named in 1866; it means, "Tillandsia with a head." OK, I don't get that name either, but I'm sure Botanist Grisebach, who named it, thought it made sense at the time, and the local tequila may or may not have been involved.  At least it's one of the easier names to pronounce. (I'm looking at you, Tillandsia chaetophylla.)

There were only two varieties known for quite a while, one that colored up a nice dark red before it bloomed, and one that tinged chartreuse in the center before blooming.  I believe this peach variety is a newer cultivar. Bright, tubular flowers with gold stamens eventually appear after the color change. The entire rosette can grow to about 15 inches in diameter. Mine are about 6" wide.

T. capitata normally grows on cliffs and rocks, so it doesn't like to be too damp. The only problem one needs to watch for is rot at the base. It should be drained after a good soak, then left where the base has lots of air circulation. Normal Tillie care of filtered, bright light, and twice-a-week waterings should be fine. I have found them easy to grow.

See you on Tuesday for my pros and cons of growing Lithops from seed. Have a great weekend!

Pensive Tuesday: Are Tillandsias the Future?

I was very surprised to learn that the genus Tillandsia evolved in the Andean region at the beginning of the Tertiary Period (about 65million to 2ish million years ago). They are late-comers to Earth's plant party, and very highly evolved. They've mostly given up on roots (and therefore, dirt), and ditched stomata for trichomes. They can live in some of the most difficult environments on the planet, from the tropics to the high deserts, from sea-level to some of the highest mountains. But might they become an important part of the human world?

A Tangle of Tillandsia

Many human habitations suffer from bad air. Low oxygen, high smog. A real mess. Plants have been used for centuries to clean and oxygenate the air in houses, but there's always that  problem of...dirt, which most of us don't like to have in the house. I mean, it's messy! But Tillandsias gave up dirt a long time ago, which brings me to....

Tillies are tidy.

Symbiosis! Many species have evolved to live in mutual benefit with other species. Cows and rabbits have symbiotic bacterial colonies that break down tough cellulose in exchange for vitamins, sugars, and so on.

Got symbionts?

They can't live without the bacteria, the bacteria can't live without them. I see a potential for mutualism with Tillandsias in our future. Bring those Tillies to your home, get oxygen and clean air in exchange. And for the plants, they get a safe home and good care at a time when many of them are going extinct in the wild. Seems like a good deal in the making for plants and people....

The ever-adaptable Tillandsia usneoides, Spanish Moss!

Some clever folk in Asia are already using T. usneoides as living curtains in their apartments. I'm sure the inhabitants of crowded, smoggy cities would appreciate some living Tillie curtains. And why not suspended from the walls or ceiling? In a "Florida Room"  (a semi-outdoor, semi-indoor room that can get pretty wet, and drains easily), watering could be done with sprayers. I'm not sure how watering could be done for a Tillie ceiling in a traditional bedroom, but there are lots of clever designers and engineers out there who could devise some way of managing it.

Tillandsia intermedia, on a Tillie Tower.

Has anyone out there tried living with Tillies? How did it work out? The furthest I've gone is keeping about 5 dozen Tillies in the living room, suspended on wire CD racks, which I call the Tillie Towers. It's made the room much fresher and greener than before (and a little weirder, too). How might you incorporate Tillandsias into your home??

Pensive Tuesday: More Reasons to Love Your Plants

Some very interesting science is out and about on the botanical front these days. I remember when Botany was the one thing we didn't study in school (except for chlorophyll and cell walls). You had to beg to stop studying humans and primates and write just one little paper on plants. One of my students brought this up yesterday, in fact. He's tired of studying mammals; what's up with plants for a change?

Fortunately, as the Gaia Hypothesis has gained steam, and global climate change is pretty much in everyone's face, people are taking more notice of our chlorophyllian friends. Hurray!



A Typical Florida Swampy Bit, MR, 2013

 Of course we all know that plants give us the oxygen we need to breathe. I was stunned to find out that in certain cities in Asia and the Americas, oxygen levels are frequently down below 10%. That's far less than we need to be healthy, and a very sad statistic indeed! Could an indoor curtain of Tillandsia usneoides provide an answer for these poor denizens of oxygen-starved cities??



Spanish Moss, keeping your world clean, cool, and fluffy!

 The journal nature: geoscience publishes a fair bit on paleobotany, and current research on plants/climate change as well. It's worth a read. The Daily Mail reported yesterday that a group of international scientists has found that plants emit some interesting molecules, like monoterpenes (which also smell good and have medicinal properties), and other chemicals that create a "sunshade" and offset global warming. The molecules spur cloud development, which can offset about 1% of warming, or about 30% in certain environments like the boreal forests. I'm not sure how much warming my Tillie collection is offsetting, and I'm not sure my Lithops are emitting any monoterpenes at all. I rather think they aren't. But it's still a good reason to love your plants and grow even more of them!

In more good news, Dr. Nick Lavidis, a scientist at the University of Queensland, has discovered that a combination of pine needle scent and cut grass regulates the amygdala and hippocampus of the brain; this relieves stress and calms us down in general. I've always insisted on mowing the lawn with a manual lawnmower. Now I know why.  It's calming my amygdala, which can get a little overworked with all the stress of human life on Earth these days. Dr. Lavidis worked with a pharmacologist to develop Serenascent so we don't have to get out there and mow to have a mental lift. I'm not sure where to buy it, but if I find some, I'll let you know. In the meantime, I'm mowing.





A French Blue Lithops razzes the universe. Again.



Organizing Tillandsias is Like Herding Cats....

Part of my Tilly collection, looking tidy. (MR2013)

Really? These guys look so organized, sitting politely on the floor, posing for a photograph. It's easy to tell your T. velutina from your T. harrisii, no problems here!

Full disclosure: this is what they usually look like---

A Tangle of Tillies

And it's not easy to tell a velutina from a harrisii when they're all tangled up on a table like that! Plants in regular pots are easy to label with a little white plastic stake. You can write all the info on the stake, stick the stake in the dirt, and bingo bango boom, you will always know which plant is which. You can move the pots around all you like, put then anywhere, and never be forced to wonder what the heck that voracious vine is that's taken over your bookcases.

But Tillies are different. They don't live in dirt, they can be moved around at will, and if they get watered all together in buckets, they get mixed up. I like to change the arrangements, too, from time to time, just because it's fun.  When I buy them, they have a label with a rubber band wrapped around the plant. That's useful for the short term, but rubber bands damage the leaves, and the labels aren't very decorative. So how can I keep track of what I have, and which plant is which?

The answer is in the first photo. I laid out about a dozen plants each time, with their labels, and photographed them. Now hopefully when my brain is muddled from lack of caffeine and I'm not sure which Tilly I'm looking at, (is this the bulbosa or the pseudobaileyi??) I can check the photo.  I hope this works!

Tillandsia Care Part One- No Dirt, Please!

I had a lot of fun this weekend at our local nursery. The garden staff really know their stuff, and take good care of a huge array of tropical, subtropical, and desert plants. They have a large section devoted to Tillandsias, and customers are starting to cotton to them. But most of us have no idea what to do with an air plant. I didn't either until a couple of years ago.

What do most people do with air plants (Tillandsias) when they get them home? Stick 'em in a pot of dirt.

Years ago, I brought a nice Tilly home, stuck it in a pot of dirt, watered it every day (because it was from the tropics) and watched it rot. Never again! This weekend I was speaking with a small group about Tillandsia care, and thought it was a good time to do a series on the basics. We all want our Tillies to grow and thrive, and it's not always obvious what to do to make that happen. There's not a lot on the Web, either.

Tillies Not In Dirt

These Tillandsias are in homemade pots, but there's no dirt involved, and I don't water them in the pots. They get watered in a bucket, then drained, then stuck back in the pots. The pots can have some orchid mix, or some rocks, in the bottom, and there should be air around the base of the plant so they don't rot. That's all you need. Here's a closeup of a Tillandsia caput medusae in its dish:

T. caput medusae

Plenty of air circulation keeps the base of the plant healthy. They have little roots, but those are only for gripping tree trunks, telephone wires, and small children (OK, not the latter). And some have no roots at all, like this T. argentea fineleaf:

T. argentea fineleaf

All water and nutrition is absorbed through the trichomes on the leaves, but more about that later. For right now, Tillandsias belong in a dish, or a glass globe, or hanging off of something. It's fun to figure out what to do with each one.

The next Tillie post will be about light, then there will be one on water and nutrition. Enjoy your Tillies!

Pensive Tuesday: Why Tillandsias?

Tillandsias have been increasing in popularity. Why? Well, I know a few reasons why I love them....

A Table Full of Tillies

They are portable. They can grow anywhere. Time ago, people used to be born in one place, live in one place, and die in one place. These days, good luck with that.  Tillies don't need their native earth to grow. Just some water and sun, anywhere on planet Earth, and they're good to go. No roots required.

They can grow on practically anything. Mine are growing very well on an old CD rack. What have you got? I'll bet there's something in  your garage or attic that would make your Tillies happy.

Garden Spirit, MR, 2013

Tillies are tough. They can grow almost anywhere. They can grow on almost anything. They just need a little sunshine and water and they are good to go. What plants for our age! Why do you love your Tillies??

A Flower For Valentine's Day

One of my Tillandsia caput medusae (Medusa's Head Tilly) decided to bloom a little early. I thought it made a nice, and rather unusual, Valentine's Day flower:

Tillandsia caput medusae in bloom, MR 2013

Caput medusaes can can be a little tricky, as they are very prone to rot at the base. They are densely fuzzy with trichomes and therefore retain a lot of water. The bottom leaf pouches must be drained after a good soak, because rot can form very quickly in them. The flower is lovely and reminds me of a bird-of-paradise.

Tillandsia of the Month: T. bulbosa

Tillandsia bulbosa, large clone

Tillandsia bulbosa was the very first Tilly I went nutty over and brought home. I bought it during a rainstorm at the nursery, then had to quickly run to a concert I was attending down the street. No time to stop at the car, so the bulbosa sat through the concert with me! Got a few stares, but hey, that's love.

Bulbosas are amazing. They look so alien, and, well, I'll say it, creepy. I mean that in a good way. Now I have seven or eight, what with additional purchases and grown pups.

Easy to identify because of their bulbous bouffant bases, bulbosas can grow up to 18" (large clones), or remain petite at around 4-5" (small clones). Their leaf tips turn scarlet at blooming time, which makes them even creepier, in a beautiful way.  Pups grow at the base, often hidden at first by the bulb. Ants love to live in the base pouches, just as they do with T. butzii.

Bulbosas grow all over the West Indies, Central America, Colombia, and eastern Brazil. They like it humid, with lots of rain, at least seasonally. They particularly like to live in mangroves, on shorelines. So when grown indoors, they'll need more misting and more frequent waterings than some other Tillies. As with the butziis, it's important to drain the pouches of water after a long soak, so that rot doesn't set in. Most leaf growth is in the summer, and mine bloom in mid-winter.

T. bulbosa, small clone

Those long tendrils make it easier to water them bucket-style, rather than just dunks or heavy mistings:

A soak of about 20 minutes twice or thrice a week seems to do the trick. Pups can be separated from parent plants when they're about 1/3 to 1/2 the size of the parent.

Pensive Tuesday: Mysterious Trichomes!

Lithops and other succulents conserve water using many ingenious methods. They can quickly grow fine roots to pull infrequent rain into their succulent leaves. They use CAM photosynthesis to prevent water loss. They have tough skins that resist evaporation. They can be dormant for months and need no moisture at all. They can use their longer taproots to literally pull themselves underground.

But how do Tillandsias do it? Well, they also use CAM photosynthesis. But Tillies have a unique contraption to hold and keep water. The trichome.


from Bromeliad.org.au

Many plants other than bromeliads use a variety of trichomes for a variety of functions, but the Tillandsia trichomes are my subject today. They look  like flowers or shields on the surface of the leaves. The top-facing trichomes are different from those on the undersides of leaves. Tillandsias facing more sun and drought have more of them, and are more silvery/fuzzy as a result. Shady Tillies that are used to more moisture have fewer trichomes, and they look more green and smooth.



from botany.cz



T. magnusiana has lots of trichomes!


Tillandsia trichomes can open and close like trapdoors. They can reflect up to 45% of sunlight, keeping the plant cool and moist, and they can quickly pull in water from either fog or rain.  When this happens, they essentially "lock" to prevent the water from escaping. The plant turns green, and soaks up some sun. Good air circulation resets the trichomes and the cycle can begin again. Amazing!

A mix of Tillies, a mix of trichomes.




Today's Special Tilly: Tillandsia filifolia

T. filifolia

The lovely, delicately glowing Tillandsia in the center of the bowl, next to the T. caput medusae, is a Tillandsia filifolia.  Filiform, or threadlike, leaves grow from a spherical base. It's a very small Tilly, only about 15-20cm diameter on average.

Filifolias come from higher elevations in Central Mexico and Costa Rica.

Wikimedia Commons

They like medium to low filtered light, and a lot of humidity. Their flowers are a lovely lavender. They live in zones 10 and 11, or indoors. The key to happy filifolias is a lot of humidity and air movement, though some people grow them successfully in glass orbs. The tips of their leaves turn brown and shrivel if they are not getting enough watering or humidity.

I try to keep my filiform Tillies in the center of the group, where the humidity is highest, and I mist them whenever I think about it, which is fairly often.  They get a good soaking in a bucket two or three times a week. They are a lot of fun to hold in the palm of your hand, and always get compliments from guests.

A Plea for Data: Doing It Right

I recently posted about wanting more data from nurseries on the plants I buy. And I found a wonderful Bromeliad nursery that's doing just that.  When I bought a few Tillandsias from a local garden center, I saw that they were individually tagged with the species name, and each came with a card of instructions. Wow!

Russell's Bromeliads in Central Florida, USA, is doing it right. Not only do I get the data, I get a lovely card on the science and care of Tillandsias, and, on the back, a list of things we botanical enthusiasts tend to get wrong with Tillies. It's a list of common mistakes, and it had wonderful info on how to care for these amazing and peculiar plants. So here's to Russell's! I'm a happier gardener as a result of their data-sharing, and so are my Tillies (which are getting awfully big, truth be told):

A table full of Tillies.

Tillandsia of the Month: T. abdita



Tillandsia abdita, Mexican Form

My Tilly of the Month is always hard to choose, they're all so wonderful and unique! But for October, I chose the red-tipped T. abdita, because it looks kinda scary with all that Halloween red. Like long red fingernails! Well, okay, more beautiful than scary. But it's October. It can be scary for a month.

There are two forms of abdita, this one, from Mexico, and another, from Costa Rica. The Mexican form stays red for a full year after flowering, which is unusual for Tillies. Generally, the red and pink only last a month or so during and after flowering. This one has flowered, but has not offset a pup (ramet) yet. Abditas like water, and dry out a little more quickly than some others, so good soak twice a week, and daily mistings will be fine. Enjoy!

Watering Tillandsias the Easy Way

My Tillandsia (Air Plant) collection was easier to water when it was...smaller. Now I've got about 2 dozen of about a dozen species, and they are all growing rapidly. Misting is woefully inadequate, and was making a mess anyway, because my Tillies are indoor tillies (the sea spray outside would kill most of them). They long outgrew their little watering pan. They get pretty thirsty, and need a serious watering twice a week. But how???

Better get a bucket.

Watering Air Plants the Easy Way

Here's a juncea and filifolia, and a few others, in my trusty orange bucket out on the patio.  I fill the bucket with about 2 or 3 liters of filtered water.  To the water, I've added 7 drops of rice vinegar per liter, and a tiny pinch of bromeliad fertilizer. This fertilizer is meant to be absorbed through the bromeliads' complex leaf structures, not through its (often vestigial) roots. Each bowlful of Tillies gets about 30 minutes in the bucket, then an upside-down draining. Why upside-down? Some Tillandsias can drown if water gets trapped at the center of the plant. Others can rot if water stays trapped within the leaves. Caput medusaes are notorious for that sort of diva behavior...!

Bulbosas and butziis getting a bath.

On non-watering days, they get misted in the mornings.  I only water Tillandsias in the mornings, because they respire at night, and if they're sopping wet, they can't breathe properly. So far, this routine has worked better than any other, especially considering Tillandsias have different needs, and this seems to be the best one-size-fits-all approach. They are higher maintenance than just sticking them on a wall (where they usually die after a few months), but so worth the effort! It's wonderful to see them growing new leaves and ramets (pups).

Pensive Tuesday: Poaching and Ex Situ Conservation

Today's post is just my early musings on the big problem of plant conservation on our planet these days. Two topics that interest me are the problem of plant poaching, and the promise of ex situ conservation. Those of us who grow endangered or extinct-in-the-wild plants and share our knowledge of them and enthusiasm about them for others are definitely engaged in good work. Botanical gardens and collections that preserve seed and DNA are very important as species go extinct.

I know in my part of the world, that some species of Mammillaria cacti, my favorite, are being poached to extinction in the wild.

 Ditto Tillandsias.

And habitat loss is a huge problem for both genera. So over the next few weeks, I'll be going over my collection with an eye to what needs to be conserved, and how best to do that. If you've got books or articles on the subject that you can recommend, let me know! I'm researching....

Tillandsia Magnusiana, and Some Guests!

I've been adding to my Tillandsia collection, which now covers a small tabletop. Oh well, who needs tablespace, right? I'm learning more about how these remarkable epiphytes work, and it's much stranger than I supposed. More on the science of Tillies in later posts, I haven't had enough coffee this morning to manage it at the moment. This is my newest addition, Tillandsia magnusiana:

T. magnusiana

This Tillandsia hails from Mexico and Honduras, and has a penchant for hanging out in oak trees. It has exceptionally soft, silvery "fur", which are really shield-like, gated contraptions for capturing and channeling water. No roots necessary! It's so soft, it's practically pettable. It needs watering every other day, just a good soak in acidified water, and monthly orchid fertilizer. It likes moderate, glowing light, nothing harsh.

And who greeted me on my lawn yesterday but some super guests, the Ibis Family! A little coterie from Ancient Egypt having a snack on my lawn.

Tillandsias: A Favorite

Tillandsias are locals. They grow here in the SE US, and through Central America. A lot of folks think "air plants" don't need any actual care, but in fact, they do need a fair bit of diffused light, and a lot of humidity and water. They just use their leaves instead of their roots to get the water and nutrtion that any plant needs to grow. Many people grow them in beautiful glass orbs to keep the humidity high. I don't mind misting mine morning and evening, so I keep them in homemade ceramic pots, on top of some orchid mix, which is mostly bark and perlite. I give them a good soaking twice a week in a bucket of water with a tad of vinegar and fertilizer added. The Tillandsia in the center of the photo is one of my favorites; it's small and very feathery, fun to hold in my hand. Basically, it's a cutie of the Tillandsia world, and it has a great name, filifolia. Say it ten times fast! Its roomie is a Tillandsia caput medusae (cool name!) which is soft and fuzzy, not monstrous at all. You can look at it straight on, and, unlike Perseus, you won't need a shiny shield to see it.