Each time I visit the Seymour Conservatory, I admire their beautiful Spanish moss (Tillandsia usnoides.) I grew some of it in one of my trees one summer but it's not cold hardy here and by the end of the summer, the birds had torn it apart as they like to use this for nest building.
Since I have a greenhouse now, I decided that it would be fun to have some out there so I bought a couple of small hanks and have been enjoying misting them along with my other tillandsias in the greenhouse but thy looked very sparse.
A box arrived today...
A week or so ago while searching the interweb for some plant or other, ebay showed up as one of the results. Clicking there, I discovered lots more interesting plants, among them a listing for "Live Spanish Moss from my trees in Florida." The price for a ten pound box, including postage was only a little more than I paid for the two small bits at a nursery. Hmmm. There is a lot of live Spanish moss in this box!
And a few of these tillandsia-looking things. Is this a different plant or is this the flowering body of the Spanish moss?
There was even a branch with two of these on it.
I started hanging a few pieces here and there.
The seller told of a time when he was packing a box and had put in a bit too much so he reopened the box to remove some and out jumped a gecko. There were no surprises in my box even though Spanish moss shelters rat snakes, three species of bats and one species of jumping spider is found only on Spanish moss.
FYI, ten pounds is a LOT of Spanish Moss! The naked lady finally has a winter scarf!
I'll continue when I have more time but it was fun to be out in the greenhouse doing something .
The box was quite full and as I kept taking more out, the remainder seemed to expand. This is the box after I was done for the moment, still overflowing. Perhaps finding a cool lichen-covered limb to hang and drape with the moss would be a good idea.
