Tillandsia House Air Plants Lichens

[kg5]

The Tillandsia flexuosa var vivipara arrived last week.

My 1st attempt to grow this shape type plant. The type that need a pot to stand up straight.

Holding the plants in position we have two lines (braided) next to each other and using them to hold up rows of plants and it seems to be working very well.
There will be 3 different rows of line.

T. flexuosa var vivipara

[kg5]

Tillandsia & orchids seem to grow better in groups of the same plants.

Makes them great for landscaping.

[kg5]

This is a T.ionantha mexicana harvested. Started with separating some pups a month ago with no hassles over the last 3 to 4 weeks. So 5 days ago took over 100 pups from 25 plants. The top left is the parent plants. Am hoping some will pup again. Their is still a strong 4 months more of the growing season to come. So if they are going to pup again I figure now's the time to find out. The bottom left is same plants that are still in pup just to see what happens to plant heath and happiness by leaving them to clump up . This is my 1st harvest of this plant.

Image 4th March 2017




Image today 1st May 2017. Basically the above plants in the image are 2 months and below is the currant way they look today. The parent plants are all growing more pups and looks to be the winner out of taking the pups off early or just keep letting them grow on ,on the parent plants.

[kg5]

Got a 18 month update from the only commercial Tillandsia grower in Australia. Some of my email.

Questions: Are we any closer to getting Tillandsia imports back into Australia? How is the process to getting Tillandsia's back into an importable position again?Is it possible for me to have a reasonable plan(next couple of years) to buy Tillandsia imported pups again at wholesale prices?

Part of the email reply.

The only person that is across this situation in detail, other than the owner, is me – and I work at both locations.

Sorry, but DAFF will not answer obvious anomalies in their interpretation that Tillandsias have been infected by xylella when in fact no infected plants have been found. It does not look as though DAFF are going to address this, and the question on when & if is not possible to answer. But my guess is that they will not bend. So I think this current situation will continue into the future – with no end in sight.

My personal approach update.

Tillandsia's (air plants) had 95% of the market in Australia came out of the Americas. A bacteria called xylella has stopped this import in Australia indefinitely. No sign of the government ban ever lifting.

There is only one commercial grower of these plants in Australia and the price has basically only gone up by 50% but this has stopped the traditional sellers from buying these plants. It looks like I am the only person buying commercial amounts from this only one selling source. I can see this situation is holding the price of these plants down because others are no longer in the market. So the sellers that were use to buying at the lower prices have just stopped buying and selling them.

My angle is to grow on Tillandsia pups into mature Tillandsia plants. In all my focused plant growing areas are where there is a shortage of mature plants but there are some tillys that suit me to sell as pups. Have picked out some of the best growers here and am focusing on them as being my targeted mature plants.

I need to repeat the stock I have grown on and broken them down and the pups purchased this year. I need to keep the same amount of stock plants rolling on for the next 2 years.

[kg5]

Tillandsia funckiana the small form is a very strong health easy to grow plant here. The large form grows strongly here but is prone to die back from the base of the plant. This is common and does not lead to the plants death. Still growing these plant but not in large numbers.

In the mostly colder areas of Australia this small form plant is very slow growing but not here.

The small form has been selected as one of the target tillandsia's of great growing importance for me here with my climate.

After much experimenting the best way for cost of getting as many plants to grow on as possible is to take a 2 1/2" or 6.5cm cutting and by twisting it in a around direction around the stem I can get 5 to 6 health small plants from a single cutting.

If you cut the same size cutting and divide it with secateurs it is only possible to get 2 healthy cuttings.

[kg5]

Now that I have more experience with growing Tillandsia's and knowing for a fact that the Tillandsia import ban into Australia has no end in sight makes the decision to add 50% more shelving to Tillandsia House upper most in my mind. The timber ordered materials are due to arrived very soon. Still have shade cloth and aged gal wire netting on hand as left overs from the original project that will finish this extension.

The extra shelving with increase better growing areas for the very different growing needs for the many Tillandsia's that are being growing on.

The top rated Tillandsia's for growing on is the small form funckiana and equal top place is ionantha mexicana. Two extremely vigorous grower here. Next group is bergeri, caulescens, cotton candy, houston, mallemonti, ionantha ionantha, paleacea small form, plagiotropica, stricta, stricta amethyst, tenufolia emerald forest, tricholepsis and the last group has many in it but getting numbers is hard thing to do but I will mention one that I very much like and am really hoping the 20 plants will give me some numbers in time is Tillandsia crocata a lovely little silvery plant with yellow flowers that are highly fragrant with a cinnamon scent.

[estación seca]

Learn how to grow them from seed... maybe sometime in the future it will be possible to import seed, if not plants.

[kg5]

Very interesting estación seca. Thank you! Seeds have slipped my mind. I will now be collecting seed. Need to start researching seeds and clones being the how and why.

Have had some success with the seed from butzii but after 3 years they are about 3/16" or 3mm. Have about 200 to 300 of them. Hard to count them they are in a large bright green ball type shape.

Am going to make contact with the ex wholesale nursery that still has a huge variety of Tillandsia's at hand to see what they are doing with seed and flasks plus possible obtain their help and guidance.

Got some flask size clones of fasciculata with orange yellow flowers about 3 years ago and lost half. Extremely hard to grow from flasks size here but have 200 or so plants that are about 4" or 100mm in size.

Time to get some clones happening as well. 3 to 5 years is now a senseable time frame to be working in for Tillandsia stock in Australia now.

In the back of my mind I really thought that in 2 more years I would be buying Tillandsia pups at wholesale prices again. Just have to accept the now situation.

[estación seca]

Flasks? People I know sow them on moss-wrapped branches and keep them moist.

By the way, I've looked at a lot of Tillandsia seedlings in habitat. Almost all sprout on the undersides of branches. Then they grow around and up. This lets them sprout and grow in shade for a while, even in hot, sunny areas.

I suspect they blow to a damp branch on their parachute, stick because of water surface tension, and slide around to the underside when more dew or rain falls. Then they sprout.

[kg5]

Wow estación seca.

It looks like Tillandsia seed is not a banned import into Australia by Effective as of: 16 June 2016 import permitted seeds list.

The ban on Tillandsia's plants started Nov 2015.

Now how am I going to find the best tillys to grow from seed?

So the area under my shelving (the floor) looks to be a good place to grow from seed.

---------- Post added at 12:48 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:14 AM ----------

Finding out very quickly Tillandsia seeds are very hard to buy.

Looking at China based seed rip offs!

Anybody got any Tillandsia seed sourcing info to buy?