yiming Thank you for responding. I see great window space, and like how you suspended the 'branch' to hang some of your plants. And other container (repeating myself!) and the stools-benches they sit on...good taste IMO :) Most of all - great looking plants. May I ask what is the plant with yellow flowers or fruit in your first photo?

Kim, the vast majority of Tillandsias are orthotropic (grow towards light) but can be mounted so's that they face away from their light source. They will eventually twist and contort back towards the light. A lot of times this practice ruins the symmetry of the plant's form. One species in particular (bulbosa) is an ageotropic grower, it grows in the direction it's leaves are facing. Some like butzii and ionantha will clump with many of the plants facing all directions with no apparent contortions. Any of the pseudo-bulb tills (ehlersiana, seleriana, magnusiana) should be mounted sideways so that water doesn't sit in the leaves. Your dry-loving guys like duratii, stretocarpa and straminea can also be mounted the same way but they too will eventually grow towards the light. The way you've got your duratii now is cool but down the line you'll know what to expect. Paul, that would be a question for the ages. Maybe someone from Argentina or Brazil could help.

Hi gonzer, I don't mind leaving the plants out in the full light if I know how to do it without burning the plants. So far I've had some poor experiences. I managed to sunburn my exserta, xero, latifolia / incarnata (whatever that plant is, different pros tell me it's a different plant), cyaena and strepto. The cyaena aside, the rest are rather silvery plants especially the exserta and xero. They should be able to take more sun. *theoretically* That, and almost every resource on the internet is telling me bright light but not direct sunlight. And some resources are now quoting 20 000 to 40 000 luxes for 12 hours a day which is 3 times more than the shaded balcony. It's got me all confused, and upside down on what to do with these supposedly adaptable and low maintenance plants. Is there a method to get the tillandsias to sit in the sun? Can you slowly work them into it, starting them near the door and inching them closer to the edge of the balcony day by day till they're really in that afternoon sun for longer hours of the day? I put my plants out in the sun the first week i got them home and after I saw the burn marks they went straight into the shade house and they've been there ever since. Now my roland gossellini is green and evidently deficient and lacking its healthy red but I'm afraid to put it into the sun lest it end up with similar fate to the others. Don't get me wrong, if you're going to respond that I should just try it myself, I would, except air plants cost a bomb in Singapore. That xero, which is about the width of my F1 key to my F9 key on my keyboard, cost me 50 bucks. I don't feel like sunburning a 50 dollar plant right now so if you're able to give me some sound advice I'll surely listen first before burning another plant like the 50 dollar roland gossellinii. :bag: (For some odd reason Tillandsia biotope likes to retail plants at 50 bucks a pop here... even the tectorum that goes for 10 USD is sold at 50 bucks here)...

I had all sorts of plans to fix our garden this year. Last year, we had a pup who was digging up everything and pulling plants out of my pots. So, thinks I, this year, he will be 19 or more months old, so he will be calmer and not so interested in destroying the gardens/yard. Ha. How wrong I was. This year, I will be spending my time training him to refrain from such antics. sigh. Still, we need to get some trees in the back because our neighboring woods are being developed despite our best efforts to stop it (wetlands and intermittent stream are not valued by our city council who also rejected the geologist's report that said the ridge where the homes are to be built above the wetlands is unstable (arell clay). Can't wait for the pile driving to start. :-( Oh, and speaking of unstable soil, we will, I hope, be trying our hands at building a stone retaining wall to try to stabilize our hill which has eroded more than usual this year due to all the rain we have had which led to raging streams of water rushing down and through the lowest part of our yard toward the woods. Last year was our wettest on record!