Air Plant Suspended in Light Bulb

A society is defined not only by what it creates, but by what it refuses to destroy.” -John Sawhill

An air plant in a light bulb is an old idea but today we came up with a way to suspend it inside the light bulb instead of just sitting at the bottom. Sometimes there will be moss or sand inside the glass that makes it a bit challenging to water any other way except spraying it down.

This way you can suspend the air plant in the glass and when it’s time for watering you can actually pour water right into the light bulb and dump it back out without disturbing the arrangement …much. Rain or freshwater aquarium water is awesome but tap water does the job too.

First thing to do is to choose a burned out light bulb and then gut it. If you don’t know how to gut one you can check out our older post, Recycle Light Bulb into Vase, to learn how.

We used aluminum wire in this demo but you could alter it if you like and use twine or fish line. DO NOT use copper wire as it will kill your air plant.

We used scrap pieces of wire so we don’t know what size it is but guessing about 18 gauge, but that’s not all that important. At one end of the wire we made a little loop for the air plant to rest in and a spiral at the other end. Also, there is a bend in the wire to suspend it over the edge of the light bulb as shown in the photo.

Next we put some E6000 glue on the little hoop end to hold the plant in place. E6000 is water resistant and will not hurt the plant so it is perfect for the job.

Then with another piece of wire we created another spiral (below) that fit in the grooves of the light bulb – kind of a pain in the butt and probably not necessary since we ended up gluing it into place with the same glue – E6000.

Then we applied a little more glue to the metal part of the light bulb and coated it with some sand.  You should have a couple pieces that look like those in the photo below.

Nest, suspend your air plant with the wire attached and you’re good!

Hang it in bright indirect light and be sure to water regularly – about once or twice a week and dump out excess water.

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