Today is my airplants watering day and I thought I’d share my routine to show off how amazing airplants can be; hopefully even convince some people to get some interesting ones. There’s no science to it, I just follow some basics. First, I know it’s time to water because the trichromes all over the plants will turn silvery instead of a fuzzy gray. I used distilled water only and every second watering is with a very weak dilution of maybe 10% the recommended strength of orchid fertilizer. All I do is fill a huge bowl about halfway with water, put the smaller plants in first and work my way to the largest last as they’ll tend to float, then I have to use a decorative pot from one of my other plants to hold them down, and top the water up to cover them. I like to do this first so I can do all my other plant care while they soak, typically 20-90 minutes. Once I’m done with the rest of my plants or am waiting for pots to stop dripping, I go take the airplants out of the water and place them upside down to dry the crown and prevent crown rot. It takes maybe 10 seconds for my 4 smallest to dry out and about 30-60 minutes for the biggest to dry. I don’t treat any of them differently except for when I first get them, they’ll have a soak in water mixed with some special soap, fungicide, and StressCoat. After they’ve all dried I return them to their displays and leave them be other than a misting here just for funsies. These photos are all from this watering session and in order are: 1: dry plants asking for water, especially the ionanthas and recurvata 2: freshly placed in the water, still slightly washed out 3: almost 100 minutes later they’re all super green and don’t float anymore, except the setacea, he’s in rehab so he always floats from having been abused in his last home 4: drying the plants with the crowns down over a paper towel I have 16 air plants of only 8 species but have another 12 new species on the way. We can also see my xerographica has flowered, he had 2 but one of them tend to die out to allow the other to take more nutrients.
