Though, I am a spiney fancier, but I have kept some Till. , mostly are xeric type.
My top 5 are, T. xerographica, T. ehlersiana, T.albida, T. hildae and a little cute T. tricholepis

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My little clump of T. tricholepis.
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Tomas, that clump of aeranthos is a gorgeous specimen, very lovely flowers! How old is it?

Stephania, your xerographicas sure look happy! And that tricholepis is very, very nice - that's on my wish list.

I don't have that many Tillandsias, so my "wish list" and my list of "Top 5 favorite Tillansias" are basically the same list - they are all plants that I like the looks of but have not yet acquired...

1. seleriana
2. capillaris 'pitchfork'
3. tricholepis / bryoides / loliacea
4. neglecta
5. tenuifolia

I like the shape, great size, and fuzziness of seleriana; the wonderful form of capillaris 'pitchfork' as seen up close, as well as the interesting clump it makes; tricholepis, bryoides and loliacea are all minute and I think, equally fascinating, so I cannot decide between them; I love the color of neglecta's flowers; and the shapes and colors and variability in the foliage of tenuifolia.

If I had to choose from among the Tillandsias I do have, I would have to say the following are my favorite:

1. bulbosa
2. caput-medusa
3. araujei
4. albertiana
5. ionantha, large form (Mexico)

Mike

Tillandsias are in the minority in my bromeliad collection and I don't 'study' them as much as I do with neo's, aechmea's and vriesea's. So there might be a lot of beautifull ones out there that I do not know about, so I will choose my top 5 from my garden. And that might change to-morrow, but the past year or so, these are my favourites:
T aeranthos was the first tillandsia I ever had - my first bromeliad actually! The vibrant colour is just beatiful and I like the mass display of it - regular, year after year:
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And albertiana is probably the one that I put te most effort in to aquire. I am a sucker for brilliant red flowers!
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And blue flowers : Till neglecta
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And for the colouring of the leaves at flowering : till ionantha
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Another red flowering one, till edithae:
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And then capitata Peach for year round colour and form. And I like to grow them single (I am not too sure about this one's same. The supplier I got it from, is infamous for attaching just any name that comes to mind!)
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Japie

They're all my favorites, but a few of my personal faves are shown. I'm more into texture than flowers.
A stoloniferous T. disticha
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a tiny but old T. kautskyi
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T. ionantha albo-marg
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ionantha X funkiana (much cooler in hand!)
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T. heteromorpha
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T. heteromorpha "Rope"
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maybe, just maybe, my favorite
streptphylla X psuedobaileyi
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Gonzer, those are all so fantastic. Wow! I think I might be partial to the stoloniferous T. disticha, T. heteromorpha 'rope', and the ionantha X funkiana hybrid. You have a great collection!

Mike,
the plant itself may be 20 years old, but sometimes it splits, sometimes I take a piece of it. And I started to fertilize just few years ago.
Now I would be interested to know how old is Japie's.
Tomas

Tomas, I started off with one small piece maybe 12 - 15 years ago, but I now have several clumps the size of the one in the picture above and I constantly give pieces away. Interesting fact: About a little more than a year ago when the brom bug had seriously bitten me, I started to make sure that I water mine regulary and also gave them some food from time to time (they are all hanging in trees where the irrigation system does not reach) and they were NOT doing so good. I suppose the general micro climate that I created in my garden, is sufficient for them to thrive!

Japie

Tomas and Japie, have you both noticed the difference in the flower structure of your albertianas?

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my favorites:

1. T. jalisco-monticola.
2. T. xerographica.
3. T. ponderosa (don´t have it).
4. T. bulbosa gigante.
5. T. exserta (don´t have it).

T. jalisco....
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Gonzer, the leaves also look diffirent. Are those diffirent forms or could it be that Tomas' plant is just growing in a slightly dryer environment than mine. Mine gets some midday sun and gets a fine mist spray from my irrigation system twice a day.
Japie

My main brom thing is interesting colors and foliage patterns, so it's hard for me to get too excited about scurfy grey leaves. When I see something like T. rothii, though, that catches my eye:

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A huge clump of T. funckiana, all in bloom and blushing red at the tips with red flowers too is pretty hard to beat, as is a big cluster of blooming T. stricta. I particularly like pink/blue combinations, so I'm going to have to add T. aeranthos to that list. Japie's and Tomas's plants are gorgeous!

As common as it is, I have a soft spot for T. cyanea, particularly the darker forms like 'Anita' and 'Sandy'. In addition to its long-lasting inflorescence and pink and blue color scheme, it has a delicious spicy fragrance and grows in a pot, which I prefer to mounting. There's even a variegated clone, but the real queen, in my opinion, is its hybrid, 'Creation'.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:436205}}

Lisa, I didn't know rothii looked like that - that is a really pretty Tillandsia. I assume it only colors up like that when it begins blooming? I have not seen other forms of cyanea before, but these two you mention sound interesting, and I also like 'Creation' - does anyone know how easily it blooms? (or where I can get it? - from Michael's?)

"Scurfy"??? Don't make it sound so dirty Lisa! ;-)
Japie, I'm surprised that your plant can handle as much water as it does, it prefers the drier side. On Tomas' plant you can see how the leaves have that thin channel running down the middle, a sign of needing water. The leaves will curl inward to indicate that they're thirsty.
The differences in petal shape is no doubt a locale indicator, not an irrigation issue. I'm going to send both your photos to Paul Isley for a determination. He has/had plants that exhibit very thin petals, narrower than Tomas' plant. I would love to get a plant from your clump to see if the growth is indeed a geographic indicator.
BTW Lisa, your rothii is superb! (not "scurfy" at all)

And I totally forgot about my inconspicious green one (at the moment!) that is hanging in my frangipani tree untill I saw the picture of Lisa's rothii. That is untill it starts to flower, then no one can miss it!
Till brachycaulos:
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Gonzer, I just noticed the albertiana pictured in Baench's book, the leaves green and plumb like my plant but the flower petals even much more narrower than Tomas'. Could it perhaps be growing conditions that influence it like that?

Japie

T. rothii stays that color all the time if you grow it hard and give it good light, Mike. I wish brachycaulos would do the same! T. tricolor and the red-leafed form of juncea are also good ones for bright red foliage in strong light.

'Creation' is a very big plant. With the flower spike it can be a 2-3 feet tall, and as wide across. I counted 18 "paddles" on mine the last time it bloomed, and a friend's had even more than that, but commercially it's often forced into bloom early to produce a smaller, more manageable plant. Left on its own it can take years to bloom. The link is from Tropiflora. I think Rainforest has it too, and probably Bird Rock, but I don't think Michael's does.

The size of the petals is pre-determined genetically. Variations occur in nature when so needed. Lisa, isn't the term used, a 'swarm' when a group of plants in one section of a locale differ from the rest of the plants in that area due to evolution? Like the finches on the Galapagos?

Patusho, I like your T. jalisco-monticola.

Lisa, 'Creation' does sound like a large plant, too large for me, in fact. It really is pretty though.

Gonzer,

I looked better at my albertiana and just now noticed it is not one of the grey tillandsias, right? Should I keep it more humid? I have one large clump, it grows well but doesn't flower at all, I tried a bit shaded position and than full sun ... I thought it could be a genetical question. Than I bought a small one and it flowered immediately. But I treat it as roughly as the first one.

Tomas

No need to change a thing about the way you're treating your plant Tomas. Albertiana, although green, is not what we normally consider a "green till" so don't worry about humidity. It is saxicolous (rock dweller), found in a small area of the Andean foothills in NW Argentina and was only described in 1969. It likes to be shaded from the sun during part of the day. From personal experience I've found that any excess water that collects (especially if you have clumps) should be shaken off. Also, last year we had some serious low temperatures and albertiana was one plant that suffered slightly.

Hi guys this is a pretty old forum but I hope some one will be able to answer.

I have been looking everywhere on how to grow the air plants in ball like shapes like the first photo. Everyone has them in balls like this but no one explains hot to make them. Would anyone be able to help by writing some instructions.

Thanks

I think basically what one does is not take the pups off the mother plant and the plant grows by pups maturing, flowering, having pups which have pups which continue until they break apart somehow (by humans doing it or by, say, falling out of a tree). If they are a kind that do not easily clump (I understand that funckiana is like this), you can arrange them together and perhaps use fishing line (since is can be nearly invisible) to make the into a clump.

As for favorites... funckiana, heteromorpha, and similar plants, because they remind me of pine trees and visiting the forest, which I don't get to do often enough. Xerographica and similar gray ball-shaped ones (like chiapensis) because they're... loners maybe, lone wolves, and I like Mexico, too. Whacky looking ones (bulbosa). Whatever is growing well at the time or being surprising (lots of ionantha flowered this last winter, and two what may be filifolia, which was very cool). While I take pictures of all my new plants with their labels for later identification, I don't always recall their names. I should work harder on that.

Thankyou Debby

This seems to be the answer because I have some succulents and I've just let them grow and they've basically made a sphere of succulents.

Which species do you know of that clump together that I could use?

Thankyou

Ionanthas are good clumpers that make a ball shape. Also soft gray stricta (and maybe other strictas, but I don't have any but the soft gray ones, which also bloom easily) . Most (all?) Tillies will pup, but their pups won't necessarily form into nice clumps or balls. I'm thinking caput medusa and similar plants, where pups stick out at 90-degree angles as though they want to part ways as soon as they grow up enough :) The grass-like ones like Juncea will clump; I can't imagine them turning into a ball shape though. Checking on sales sites, Tillandsia Aeranthos looks like a ball-shaper (pic on http://airplants4u.com/Aiplantsforsale.html) ; pictures of balls and clumps also at: http://www.airplant.com/specimens.html and at http://www.ctsairplants.com/default.asp I just googled (I use duckduckgo) "tillandsia hanging ball sales" and got some hits with pictures :)

Thankyou for the very useful info!