Recently I travelled to San Francisco for the annual Garden Bloggers Fling. We visited about 15 different public and private gardens. There were many opportunities for inspiration.
At the Nichols garden in Oakland, I was taken by their use of tillandsias and bromeliads in the Canary Date palm in their front yard.
I have about 15 palm trees at my new house. I think they were planted at least 15 years ago. Mostly they are 30 ft tall fan and queen palms with relatively smooth trunks. They don’t lend themselves to this kind of planting. However, I do have a few where I think this should work well.
Here’s my test case, with two tillandsias that I bought at Ikea of all places (obviously an impulse buy ). Locally, I think Another Place in Time should have a good selection. This tree already has some weeds growing in it, so it will be nice to have something attractive there as well. And one of these days I might get around to pulling the weeds out.
If this works, I think I’ll start adding some more tillandsias and maybe try a few bromeliads as well.