Hello, first time poster on this sub. I had air plants years ago but killed them fairly quickly. Recently I've gotten into houseplants as a hobby and wanted to try my hand at air plants again. Last weekend I picked up this one at a nursery and soaked it in filtered water for roughly 20 -30 minutes, followed by drying upside down. I've also misted the plant a couple of times during the week, also with filtered water and drying it upside down. I just gave it a full soak this morning, as you can probably see by the water droplets. It sits on a bed of aquarium gravel in an open glass terrarium globe with air holes on a shelf that gets medium indirect light. As you can see from the photos, the roots and bottom leaves look very dried out (and to be fair, they looked like that when I bought the plant), along with some browning/crispiness at the tips. Was this doomed from the start and I should have picked a different one, or is it possible to revitalize it?
by MicellarBaptism
2 Comments
The plant looks fine. The dried leaves near the base are just old discarded leaves nothing to worry about.
air plants don’t actually use their roots to absorb water or nutrients, they only use them as holdfasts, so you don’t need to worry about them drying out.
The one thing I would change about your setup is take it out of the terrarium. It doesn’t need the gravel and the decreased airflow from the dome won’t be helping. Honestly you can just leave it on the windowsill like you are in the photos that will be perfectly happy 👍
It looks well and vibrant to me. It’s normal that their roots are dry when not attached to anything. The nutrition and water intake happens through leaves. It’s also normal that the oldest leaves gets dry and perhaps fall off while new leaves grows.