"I didn't realize I needed!"

Debby, very important to lose that mind-set or you'll find yourself in some pretty negative financial straits. Collect what you want but trying to get all the available forms leads to a diet of Top Ramen and potato chips.

LOL! My tillies are doing so well, and my apartment is so small... I have to stop and think, really, do I need it? I have saved $$ by not going to the Coffee and Chcolate festival this weekend ($12 just to get in!), so I can afford to order some more plants. But where to put them? With spring coming slowly (it's sunny but cold out this morning, only 32F at 8:30am!), I have to wait to put the plants out to enjoy fresh (dry) air. More room for them on the porches -- but then in September I have to bring them in again. They won't even help! They just sit there looking happy, not realizing they could soon freeze. I'll need a new plant light, too. Sigh! At least I don't have a house, car, kids or pets that I need to spend $ on; might as well spend it on the occasional plant... and organic barbeque-flavored potato chips :)

And talk about saving money: the spritzers I buy usually break down somehow and stop spraying. I decided instead I'd look into a pump action one (fill tank with water, tighten top, pump, spray water through wand). I looked on line, saw some likely candidates at Amazon, but tried Walmart first. Found a 1 gallon Flo Master Multi Purpose Sprayer for -- get this! -- $5.00!!! I had them check that was the right price and it was. Got it home, found it was 90% put together already (don't know if it was a return or the company just did it), and tried it out and it works okay. The one I was thinking of getting online was $16.99 plus shipping, so around $22 or so. If you're looking for a sprayer, check around, you may be surprised. Oh, and the bottle sprayer I had been using that had broken down -- it got jealous of my new purchase and started working again. So I can use the bottle sprayer inside and the 1 gallon sprayer outside.

Very interesting video, thanks for sharing the link, debbyabq. I didn't even know that there's such a thing as variegated Tillandsia, and that 'Predator'... Wow.. I became a bit concerned because Paul Isley mentioned the word 'rare' quite a few times and I feel that I need to have them, hahahaa... :D

While they are rare, that likely means they haven't grown a lot of them yet and so they are more expensive. Years ago, I'm not sure when, a decade or so, Rainforest Flora decided they'd grow all that they sell and not harvest from the wild. I read all the back issues of the Bromeliad Society Journal that I could (found them at http://journal.bsi.org/index.php), and members wrote long, juicy articles about their journeys to Latin and South America seeking new plants and having great adventures. Also, they wrote about losing many precious, rare plants to insecticidal gas used by the customs agents at our borders. Thus US-based nurseries (and likely those in other countries like the Netherlands, Australia, etc.) growing as well as hybridizing Tillandsias and Broms became almost a necessity and now a good marketing point. I think that while Customs has eased up on some of their inspection processes, the countries where the plants are (or were) collected have been plowing under jungle for farmland -- or protecting it as a resource so tourists can see it, which is better -- so the nurseries selling home-grown stock is a good thing these days. Fortunately for us, too, a lot of Tillandsias grow in Florida and along the Gulf of Mexico, so if you like Spanish Moss and Ball Moss, you are in luck.