Air Plants:
After recently being introduced to Air Plants, a trip to Florida was planned for a foraging excursion. Sanibel and Captiva Islands in Florida are famous for their beautiful shell covered beaches. The Ocean, Shells, Driftwood, Local Wildlife and Air Plants!
Air Plants require no soil and very little maintenance. They are perfect for decorative crafts, terrariums, and many other Pin worthy uses (Pinterest.com). After a little research, a few were initially bought on Amazon.com to propagate. Then, after successfully multiplying the first round of Air Plants, the first foraging trip to collect wild Air Plants for propagation was planned.
A couple of informative websites about Air Plants:
https://www.theeagle.com/news/local/the-misunderstood-magic-of-ball-moss/article_3c68da80-04e9-573f-ae23-aba5d446e6a0.html
https://www.hgtv.com/outdoors/flowers-and-plants/houseplants/air-plant-care
While foraging on Sanibel and Captiva Islands in Florida, the Ball Moss were easily taken off of the lower hanging branches of local Floridian trees. Since the Ball Moss, Tillandsia recurvata, seemed to be considered a weed to most of the locals, everyone that was asked openly offered any gatherable Air Plants for the taking. The branches of the little trees in front of local business' were abundant with Air Plants.
Air Plants let off "Pups" from the lower end of the plant. These "Pups" are Little Air Plants which will grow into bigger Air plants. These "Pups" are dropped by the bigger Air Plant roughly every 6mths. If you were to grow Air Plants from Seeds they would take anywhere from 2-4 years to develop. We'll see how long ours takes. Seed were gathered from the dried flowers of some while they were being cleaned up. New Pups were taken and used in Terrariums and other seasonal crafts.
More informative websites about Air Plants, their uses and how to propagate them:
https://www.naturallivingideas.com/growing-air-plants/
https://herselfsplants.com/2008/10/03/ball-moss-tillandsia-recurvata-2/
Little Lakeview Conservatory, LLC was est. in 2019 to provide sustainable plants in NH and to share information to help people create self sustainability in their own homes.
Please feel free to contact us at LittleLakeviewConservatory@gmail.com be added to our email list or with any questions, requests and comments.
Little Lakeview Conservatory, LLC * Grow a little!
