Wednesday 6 April 2011

Epiphytes!



After my thesis meeting today, mom and I went on a little ramble around the valley before lunch. We ended up stopping at two nurseries, looking at seeds, seeing what is available now (not much) and what will be coming in the next few weeks. I exercised great restraint in the huge houseplant section (saving my money for possible future lithops), but couldn't resist these two small epiphytes (air plants).

Adorable little things, and after much poking about, I found them perfect little homes in Chessex dice containers with a bit of aquarium gravel weighting the bottoms. The dice are standard-sized, so that should give you some empirical types some idea of scale.

In the coming days I want to inventory all of my houseplants, and in a fit of anal retentiveness, make up a little spreadsheet with basic care information that I can carry around with myself when watering....that way I'm less likely to forget which plant likes misting and which hates it. And just wait until I show you my baby lithops!

(yes, I haven't forgotten about Part 2 of last week's post....all written, just need to hunt up some appropriate pictures for it!)

3 comments:

  1. Oh your plants. I remember baby sitting them. I'm surprised they all survived my black thumb.

    These guys are cute! Are they sort of like bamboo, where you just add a bit of water at the bottom?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nope, they are air plants - their roots are just for hanging on to things. They get all their nutrients from water absorbed through their leaves. You could dangle on from a string or glue it to a fridge magnet and as long as you drench the leaves regularly it will be happy as a clam.

    I just have them propped in dice container for aesthetics and ease of removal for properly wetting the leaves. That and I like dice :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. I misread your title as "epiphanies" and I kept looking for a great and eternal truth in your plants ;)

    ReplyDelete