So you have been collecting Tillandsia for some time now, you have your nice display ideas for them and they are looking great. You have been soaking your air plants every 4-9 days depending on how dry and bright your place is, all is going well. People come over and always bring up how great and interesting they are, and you beam inside because most of your friends have not even heard of such a thing as an air plant. Well… here is another way you can display air plants, a fresh little look for that special dinner party, or restaurant hostess counter, or storefront window display.
All you need is some kind of glass container, floral cylinders are nice especially if your going for the special event or window display idea, but don’t sleep on the humble little mason jar as a great piece of glass to work with. The next thing you need are the air plants (the tillandsia in this piece are from Sprout Home) and water. Typically one should only soak tillandsia for about an hour, every week or so. That said, we are going to totally misuse these plants by over soaking them, they can be soaked for up to 3 or 4 hours if your only doing this long soak once a month or so. If you go with this display idea every weekend, your plants are going to start to rot from getting too much water too often. If this look is something your going to do often, I would suggest having a rotation of plants. If your rocking a one time event, go crazy! Tillandsia are pretty inexpensive, depending on the species they can be cheaper than fresh cut floral.
Set out your air plants, set your jars out, and play around with different combinations, just make sure the air plant will fit into the jar that your planning on soaking it in. You don’t want to damage the plant by cramming it into a space it doesn’t fit into. I like to soak them root side (the bottom of the plant) up, This will also help by allowing the plants to be removed without bending the leaves back against the grain, they can break off like that.
Place them inside the glass, you can start with large plants, and if there is room, you can add smaller ones into the same piece of glass. Some very large plants will look great submerged all alone. Either way, you will find a look that works for you. The only tool one might need is a chopstick to push down, and arrange the plants. Some will float around until the air bubbles have all been freed.
Step back and enjoy the little look you created. These were photographed in a window sill, back light makes these look incredible. There is a certain bit of optical illusion that goes with submerged structures, so yeah…. don’t get lost.
You want to make sure you pour out the water after your event, and give those air plants a nice shaking to remove as much water as you can from them, and please… let them dry completely out before putting them into any other type of enclosed arrangement, dry or wet. They need to live the super dry life before they can go to atlantis again. So there you go, a very nice misuse of air plants.
