Here's one thing you could do, it's fairly easy and may work - you could attach your Tillansias (like Chris has in the link below) to a piece of wood first, using fishing line, which would allow you to move your plants when necessary. Get a piece of wood and some wire. Any flexible but stiff, low gauge steel wire should work I think, no copper (poisonous for Tills). The metal clothes hangers are made from cannot withstand much bending before it breaks, I am doubtful it could be used. Anyway, wind the wire around one end of the stick a few times to that it's secure. Once you have the wire secured to the stick, you could do one of two things with the excess: (1) shape it into a hook and cut off the rest OR (2) wind it around the tree branch or other structure you want your tills attached to, you can always unwind it in the future if you want to move your tills somewhere else (and you'll want to attach your tills to the stick with fishing line before you wind this wire around whatever you're attaching it to). Anyway, that's just one idea. Good luck! Here is a link that might be useful: hanging tillandsia mount

Thanks for the nice comments. You all make me feel better. I've been so bummed because we took our car to get a new battery and the idiot put in the wrong one with reversed terminals, and hooked the cables to the wrong terminals and blew out the alternator and some other stuff. What a pain-all I wanted was a battery! The Ruby Glow was pretty big when I got it but it had to grow like 30ft in all directions before it ever bloomed. This is its first blooms. They are 5+ inches and smell soooo good. I think they are fall and winter bloomers. The medinilla gets morning shade and slanted afternoon sun. I don't know if its ideal but that was the only place I had for it and it seems to like it. I repotted it in a phalanopsis mix, perlite, and a coarse potting soil. Its supposed to be a epiphyte even though it grows into a large bush. I would love to see it in its natural habitat! I gave it BB but have no idea if I should have lol. I should really look that up. I think the TS Faye presents are some type of tillansia they grow wild in the trees here, but I don't know what they are called. They had a bunch of tiny dried up flower spikes on them. The pitcher plant gets some indirect light all day and likes humidity. It is planted in staight peat moss and has to stay wet and I don't think its supposed to be fertilized (not sure on that), I just give it rain water. I saw a diff. one the other day with really HUGE pitchers that had red fur stuff on the sides-I really wanted to get it but, I controlled myself for now lol. I love the birdcage, there's a few small air plants in it now- I just gotta figure out some other stuff that doesn't get too big. It looked kinda cool they way it was but it was so rusty. I showed it to my parrot and he didn't want anything to do with it LOL! SJN

SE PA and NJ are not exactly pineapple capitals! My Dad started a pineapple from the top of one he bought at supermarket... sliced top off with very little flesh and just planted in a pot. It had to be repotted several times as it grew... over several years. It went outside on his front steps in late-April or so and came back inside around the end of October. After he passed away and sibs and I were clearing out his house, just didn't have the heart to leave it behind. Kinda funny how outside plants are immediately BIGGER when you bring them inside!?! It sat on a stool in corner of my NJ liviingroom. Then one day in the dead of winter I was almost scared by the sight of a TEENY pineapple growing up out of the center on a stalk. It was about the size of an egg. By the time I moved it outside in late-April or early-May... about the size of a lemon. Was about the size of a decent sized orange when it started bending the stem over, so I cut it off. The AROMA filled the house as this ROCK hard mini-pineapple sat on my kitchen counter for a week or so. The minute it had the slightest give, I cut it up. It was absolutely delicious! Even the core, that's generally tough in a regular sized fruit was tender. Needed NO sugar. Have a little Asian market near me... gonna have to see if they have yuzu!?!

Hi everyone. Matthew – I understand where you’re coming from as I too am reluctant to use chemical sprays and always look for a more natural alternative where ever possible. Although I haven’t tried all of the remedies below, I know of growers who have had success with them and have no hesitation in passing them on to you. First let say that the old saying of “prevention is better than cure“ could well be applied to plants, and if you can keep the insects away, the problem goes away with them. I found out when using a very safe and low toxicity insecticide called Clensel”, that one of the ingredients (citronella) is a very good insect repellent and by simply spraying this insecticide or citronella oil around the rim of the pot, the usual flying insects just seemed to vanish, and this is the method I’ve been using ever since. The other insects that sometimes infests bromeliads (especially in over-crowded situations) are Scale and Mealy Bug. These I find can easily be controlled safely with Rob Smythe’s Canola Oil Spray - See http://fcbs.org/articles/canola.htm.  As for fertilising; if bromeliads are grown in the garden they will usually find their own nourishment. As for pot grown plants, I find that they will grow quite happily without added fertiliser as there are usually sufficient additives in good quality commercial potting mixes. If you make your own mix, to feed them naturally, just the addition of some type of animal manure will usually suffice. They are very resilient plants and are natural survivors. Although I say this, it doesn’t mean bromeliads won’t respond much better when appropriate fertilisers are used at the correct rate. Indeed many commercial growers over fertilise in my opinion and apply fertilisers each time plants are watered, but these growers have the experience and know the exact rate the plants will tolerate. For an inexperienced “backyard grower” to over fertilise, they are often courting disaster and if for example the recommended dose makes the plant grow well, doubling or tripling that dose won’t necessarily make the plant grow two or three times better and can in fact sometimes lead to its demise. In habitat, most of our commonly grown brom’s grow on trees and the only fertiliser they get comes from a “soup” (very dilute natural fertiliser) in the central vase which is manufactured from a breakdown of water, fallen leaf litter and bird and small animal droppings. As these things break down they make a very dilute natural fertiliser which is available to the plant on a continuous basis. Many of the old time vegetable gardeners would (and some still do) successfully copy this “little and often” method by using very dilute poultry and/or animal manures on a weekly basis, (Weakly and weekly) in their quest to stay away from chemical fertilisers. When I was a boy (a very long time ago) the accepted method of making poultry manure was to tip a gallon tin of poultry manure into a hessian bag and suspend it in a large garbage bin full of water. This was allowed to steep for about three weeks and the subsequent liquid was diluted with water until it was the colour of “weak tea” and applied each month. If it was applied more often to conform to “little and often” standards, this weak tea was diluted even further by mixing one part to four parts of water which resulted in an almost clear liquid. This could then be safely applied each week and many gardeners said it produced a much better result than the monthly feed. I hope the above goes some way in helping you to grow brom’s using natural methods. All the best, Nev.