Tillandsia sp?

Kapow!! I was SO excited by the 7 spikes this year! And of course had to share.

But being a lazy gardener, I have no clue what species this guy is. Well, not lazy in this case; I scrounged it from a bin at Home Depot. So I went online to find the species, and found pictures of people holding football sized clumps with 30+ spikes that kind of look like mine, but not quite. At first I thought it was an albertiana, but the purple coming out of the magenta is tubed, not a tri-petal shape.

I've had this plant for almost 12 years, so go figure how old a 30 spiker must be.


Maybe an Aeranthos Bergeri Hybrid? I don't know - the foliage doesn't look right. There are 600 species and umpteen hybrids. Quite a beauty!

I'm pretty certain this one is tillandsia ixioides (another Home Depot find - not that I go there for plants; from back in the days when there was a Home Depot run every weekend to fix something or another).

I totally want to build a real pergola (as opposed to the mutant bench thing that came with the house), line it with a misting system, and get more tillandsias. That's where you'll find me on hot summer days...