Tutorials and advice for Tills and Broms

[hornydevil]

Andy,
Seeing how many have been affected by your pics of your beautiful blooms Tills and Broms, perhaps you could provide some tutorial on the care and maintenance of the two species.

[plantlover]

Me too. I bought a T. ionantha and another NOID till and do't want it to die.

[atmccmn]

Guys, have patience.
You see, what I'm about to write will be too long to post in a single reply. Moreover, I might create more confusion than explaination. Let me summarise everything first before posting over here.

[atmccmn]

As per you guys requisition, I will start off with a brief history of bromeliads for us to further understand them. Oh ya.....there will be some specific scientific term mentioned.

As we all know, bromeliad was first discovered by Christopher Columbus in the 18th Century on his second voyage. He was introduced to pineapple(Ananas comosus) by the natives in the Carribean Island of Guadalupe. Later, pineapple was made popular in Europe and throughout the world.

This family covers more than 55 generaand more are still being reclassified to new genus or discovered up to date. All are typical plants of New World(continent of South America) where their habitat covers from Virginia and Texas (37' N) in US to the central part of Argentina and Chile (44' S). Their natural habitat ranges at sea level to altitude of over 4000m above sea level. The most interesting factor is that they survives at any unusual enviromental conditions in deserts, barren rocks as well as in wetlands with temperatures range close to freezing to razing hot desert sun.

Currently there are more than 3000 species inclusive of sub-species variants and different forms being registered. There are also about 6000++ hybrids and cultivars developed by hybridisers with many more were unnamed and marketed around. All species can be classified to 3 basic sub-family called Bromeliodeae, Pitcairnioideae and Tillandsiodeae.
I will only elaborate further in Tillandsiodeae.

In bromeliads, the overall structure only includes a stem with leaves positioned along the axis in spiral rosette pattern. All are packed together in wide variety of colors, shapes, sizes and textures. The key characteristic in Tillandsiodeae is all leaves have no thorns. Mostly are epiphytes, their roots are reduced to primarily used for anchoring to substrate rather than for water and nutrient absorption. For th roots to to reduce their absorbing function, these clever plants developed an efficient modified 'hairs' called trichomes on their leaf. These are minute multicelular strutures with the capacity to absorb water and nutrient through.

There are no other group of flowering plants have these hairs taken on such important and specialised role. Trichomes are present in all bromeliads except in the genus Navia.

The absorption of water through the leaf trichomes is explained by the principles of osmosis which I shall not elaborate further.

Besides water absorption, the flexibility of trichomes is also ascociated with light reflection. They act as efficient light reflector diminishing heat and preventing water loss. Dense concentration of trichomes increase the leaf thickness and preventing from rapid dehydratio which is crucial in desert or dry forest. By understanding the function of trichomes help us further understand this unique plants and avoiding any unnecessary mistakes we make.

Caring for the plant is easy. They love moving air. In fact this is the key insucessfully growing them. The plant tend to dehydrate faster in hot dry area. Misting the plants is not sufficient. That's why I always advise on hosing the plant untill dripping wet. Let the plant completely dry out before another watering. Usually this should take not more than 4 hours or they will suceptible to rots.

The whitier or thicker the leaves, the more lights they need with some species can even tolerate full sun condition. The green or green gray soft leaf variety need less light. Most did well in filtered lights.

As most of them are epiphytes by nature, They do best mounted on any substrate as long as they don't fall apart easily. Some even grow well(especially Tillandsia) hanging on a string that will form into a perfect sphere with time.

Most grow well without any fertiliser but for larger, more vigorous growth, one can feed at least once a month at 1/2 of the recommended strength. As they are slow grower, feeding them too regulary is only a waste of your resource.

There are still many unexplained part which I haven't touch at yet. But I think this should suffice to clear off any myths, opinoins or ideas in sucessfully cultivating them.
Untill then......AT

[eddiekee]

Can the Tills survive in office environment ? Mine was ok for few months but lately i notice the leaves tend to curl up. Is it too dry ? i sprinkle water every morning and at times run it under tap water until leaves are wet and shake off any excess water to prevent rotting. Anybody can share advice and experience on what to do next ?

[atmccmn]

Tills grown in office enviroment usually don't grow well or sometimes never grow at all. You only get a green plant that remain the same untill it slowy wither away. THe light intensity of our office flourescent or downlight are not strong enough to promote growth. Hope this helps.