The 10-Year Rewind – Part 21 – Tiny Tots

Every day this month I am looking back on the 10 years since I started this blog in June, 2008. Part 21 is this one — Tiny Tots — from October 2014, which features some gorgeous artwork by my talented partner in gardening and life, Pammy.

All sorts of spring flowers in our garden are coming out right on schedule, and the tiny ones Pammy and I have been looking closely to spot have finally made their appearance. They're so small that if you stand back a few feet you can't see them. You have to get up close … very close.

Spanish moss, or Tillandsia usneoides.

This enormous log photobombing my Spanish moss pic is
the tip of a toothpick. It illustrates nicely how small these
Spanish moss flowers are.

The flowers form at foliage junctions.

Though small, they're perfectly formed, complete with a
little yellow centre of pollen. Haven't exactly seen the
bees making a beeline for the Spanish Moss yet, though.

Just in case you're not familiar with Spanish
moss, it's that bromeliad which is also known
as old man's beard, for an obvious reason.
It's an 'air plant' that is not a parasite on its
host plant. Instead, it gets all its nutrients
from the air and rain. Here's it's thriving, hanging
off the branches of our Grevillea 'Peaches & Cream'.

Pammy loves this plant, and has done several paintings of both the plant and the flower. And so, to finish off our little celebration of this little cutie, here are two of Pammy's Spanish moss flower paintings, one a lovely little portrait of the flower itself, and the second (one of my favourites) an imagined microscope-eye's view of the foliage, where yet again Pam has created something which seems abstract at first glance yet is also realistic – it's one of the themes in her painting which I enjoy the most.

'The Reality', © Pamela Horsnell 2013

'Living and Breathing', © Pamela Horsnell 2013

Nature's pretty clockwork

Spanish moss flowering again? Must be late October in Sydney. While you couldn't set your clocks by these plants, you could set a calendar by them. 

Here's one of the extremely tiny beauties this morning. Each flower is less than a quarter-inch (5mm) across and you would definitely miss them if you didn't go looking for them. Fortunately for Pammy and me, we know to stay on the lookout for them once October rolls around, and over the last two weeks we could see the minuscule flower buds forming.

The flower pictured above is part of this mass of Spanish moss, which is growing at almost alarming rates, dangling from the branches of our olive tree.

This unusual second location for our massed moss was forced on us by circumstances. This large wodge of old man's beard (Spanish moss's other common name) once thrived on a large grevillea shrub, which collapsed and died last year. The wire framework attached to the walls was once home to a very unproductive, and rapidly fading, passionfruit vine, and so this was our solution. It's working OK, too. Most of the Spanish moss is clinging to the wires and seems to be slowly growing. My big contribution to its health is to regularly water it with a mist spray, if there hasn't been any rain.

Finally, I've added some small strands of Spanish moss to the newly planted fern garden out at the front of our house. They're hanging in there, but it's still a bit early to tell if the Spanish moss is growing yet.

One good short-term effect of the new strands of Spanish moss in the front garden is that they will add to the spooky Halloween look that the marauding, lolly-hungry kids will hopefully like to see on October 31.

I think I might raid our big backyard stores of Spanish moss this weekend and beef up the front garden's spookiness rating ... 

I'm sure that by late October next year, all these fine whisps of moss will be thicker, longer and, if you look carefully, dotted with tiny green flowers.

Getting misty over Spanish moss

Here's a good example of how hard it is to see the tiny flowers of our Spanish moss. Every year, around early November, our Spanish moss bursts into bloom. We know that, and so at this time of year I go looking for them. But the first time I looked over our Spanish moss this year, I didn't see any. I wasn't looking hard enough.

It turns out that this season's flowering hasn't been a great one, but I was wrong — the tiny flowers were there, but they weren't as numerous, that's all.

Standing back a few feet from the plant, they are so hard to spot. You need to look for little flecks of green. The flowers themselves are about a quarter of an inch (4-6mm) long and wide, perfectly formed, green petalled with a maroon base, and a very very tiny little fleck of yellow pollen in the centre, just like all the big flowers in our garden.

Now, I do have a theory about why the Spanish moss's flowering is so meagre this year, and I think it's because of disturbance. For the last few years, we've draped our Spanish moss all over our Grevillea 'Peaches & Cream' (and yes, it does look a bit spooky). 

Sadly, this year the Grevillea started to die off, due to a fungal rot within its trunk and branches. And in a big storm, big parts of it fell over. 

So, instead of removing the grevillea, we have trimmed off all the dead and dying bits, propped it up with metal stakes and a bit of strategic binding here and there, and it's now a bare-branched framework for our Spanish moss. 

It won't last forever. It might not even last a year or more, but Pammy and I love our Spanish moss and so we're happy with this temporary fix, and long may it last! Of course it's the first thing friends comment on when they step out into our backyard.

This year, instead of enjoying yet another blissful 12 months draped over the same, familiar branches, every last part of the Spanish moss has been disturbed and rearranged. And that's my theory to explain why its flowering has been so modest.  

Our clumps of the stuff thrive here, and there is one useful tip I have for anyone wondering how to grow it. Water it often. Yes, water it often with a fine mist.

Spanish moss thrives in humid zones of the warm, wet parts of southern USA, Central America and South America, and so I try to replicate those steamy conditions with regular misty sprays of water. I have one of those hose attachments which have a dial, so you can easily change from a shower, to a mist, to a jet of water, and so on. And our Spanish moss loves its misty showers.

A friend the other day said "we've always called that an air plant" and they're right, but that leads people to think they don't need to do anything whatsoever to these plants. In a sense they're right, as Spanish moss will soldier on fairly well in a mild, well-rained-on climate like Sydney, but with regular misting the stuff multiplies like crazy.

A little discovery

The simple act of finding something delightful is one that I never tire of, and I know Pammy feels the same way. We're often saying to each other "hey, come and have a look at this" when one of us discovers something worth sharing out in the garden.

Other times, instead of marching in triumphantly bearing the latest "news", I like to take the other tack and let Pammy share in the secret delight of discovering the same thing I had just discovered, but all by herself. 

This time, while she was busy elsewhere in the house, I was out in the garden and spotted the first Tillandsia (Spanish moss) flower of the season. And so I snipped off a bit of the plant with its flower and just left it on the desk in her studio, for her to "discover" when she wandered into that room. Here is the little cutie.

The Spanish moss flowers around this time of year, and so the
discovery of this year's flowers was not a major surprise.
It was more a matter of relief that they had finally appeared,
as they usually flower in mid to late October, and so early
November is getting a little bit late for them.

The first time we discovered these tiny flowers was a thrill,
and we did it by accident. Several years ago I just happened to
take some photos of the plant and, only when I opened the
photos on my computer screen, did I notice little green flecks.
So I went outside, got very very very close to the plant and called
out "Hey Pammy, come and look at this!"

Last year I used a toothpick to give you some idea of the small
size of a Spanish moss flower. This year, as I was in Pam's
studio, I grabbed a pencil for the same scale effect.

Out in the garden, stand back five feet and you probably won't
see a thing, apart from a tangle of lightly hairy silver "beard".

And here's the Spanish moss itself this cool, soggy spring afternoon. It's draped from the branches of our grevillea, which itself has grown a bit scrappy and bare-branched at its lower levels over the years. Without the Spanish moss the grevillea would look pretty ordinary, but it is the perfect framework from which to drape the long shawls of whispy grey beard, and between the two of them they're a lovely team of plants. 

The Spanish moss itself is thriving here. I always give it a light spray whenever I water the garden, to give the Spanish moss the feeling that it's in Louisiana (or Georgia, or Mississippi, or Florida ...) where it's always a bit steamy. Come to think of it, Sydney is pretty steamy in summer, too, but the extra watering I've given it in the last two years has really seen it grow better than ever.

Tiny tots

All sorts of spring flowers in our garden are coming out right on schedule, and the tiny ones Pammy and I have been looking closely to spot have finally made their appearance. They're so small that if you stand back a few feet you can't see them. You have to get up close … very close.

Spanish moss, or Tillandsia usneoides.

This enormous log photobombing my Spanish moss pic is
the tip of a toothpick. It illustrates nicely how small these
Spanish moss flowers are.

The flowers form at foliage junctions.

Though small, they're perfectly formed, complete with a
little yellow centre of pollen. Haven't exactly seen the
bees making a beeline for the Spanish Moss yet, though.

Just in case you're not familiar with Spanish
moss, it's that bromeliad which is also known
as old man's beard, for an obvious reason.
It's an 'air plant' that is not a parasite on its
host plant. Instead, it gets all its nutrients
from the air and rain. Here's it's thriving, hanging
off the branches of our Grevillea 'Peaches & Cream'.

Pammy loves this plant, and has done several paintings of both the plant and the flower. And so, to finish off our little celebration of this little cutie, here are two of Pammy's Spanish moss flower paintings, one a lovely little portrait of the flower itself, and the second (one of my favourites) an imagined microscope-eye's view of the foliage, where yet again Pam has created something which seems abstract at first glance yet is also realistic – it's one of the themes in her painting which I enjoy the most.

'The Reality', © Pamela Horsnell 2013

'Living and Breathing', © Pamela Horsnell 2013

Spanish flower shows

The first time I spotted a Spanish moss flower it was on a computer screen. I had taken some pix of my Spanish moss plant and noted tiny green flecks on the screen image as I uploaded them to my Mac. I hadn't noticed them out in the garden while taking the photos. So I headed back outside and discovered the source of the green flecks: teensy little perfectly formed flowers in all their micro glory. That was back in October one year, so now every October Pammy and I are on the lookout for our smallest flower show to begin. 

This is the best way I could think of to show you how tiny the
flowers are on Spanish moss. That lump of lumber in the
foreground is an ordinary matchstick. We're talking tiny
flowers here, folks.

Regular readers of our blog will know that my girl Pammy
is a botanical artist, and this is her watercolour painting of
a Spanish moss bloom which will be in her solo exhibition that
runs from December 4, 2013 to January 8 at Eden Gardens in
North Ryde, Sydney. At the end of this blog posting you can
find all the details of Pam's exhibition. We'd love everyone
to come along to the opening on Sunday, December 8.

Until then, I just wanted to show you a few more images of this fascinating plant, whose botanical name is Tillandsia usneoides. Its common names of Spanish moss and old man's beard paint the picture well. This is one of the so-called 'air plants' because it doesn't need soil to grow in. It just hangs from the boughs and branches of trees and gets all its nutrients from the air, the rain and general humidity. Presumably it also gets some of the nutrient-rich run-off from the trees which host its existence. And no, it's not a parasite plant. It just hitches a ride. We saw it everywhere we went as we travelled around the Southern USA back in 2011, and it's one of the special plants in our garden, pretty in its own right but also full of sweet memories.

This photo above, and the one below, show the basic form
of the tiny flowers.

Out in the garden from this far away (about
four feet) you'd never notice the blooms.

There is a bloom in this photo, roughly
in the centre of the shot. Can you see it?

Surely you can see it now?

Once you spot an individual bloom it seems as pretty as any
flower a hundred times larger, and the world of fine, grey
strands in which it lives is a magical addition to the scene.

Now, here's the details of Pam's exhibition: over to you, Pammy...

You can see this close-up watercolour painting of a Spanish moss flower along with 50 other artworks inspired by plants and the natural world featured in my upcoming solo exhibition: “Inspiration & Observation”.

The exhibition will run from 4 December 2013 to 8 January 2014 in the Eden Gardens Art Gallery at the Eden Gardens Garden Centre located at 301-307 Lane Cove Road, North Ryde: www.edengardens.com.au

Jamie and I will be attending the exhibition opening from 2-4pm on Sunday December 8, so come along to say hello and maybe pick up an original Christmas gift for a friend, family member or yourself!