Tillandsia Landscape

“I can enjoy society in a room; but out of doors, nature is company enough for me.” -William Hazlitt

In this project we created a Tillandsia Landscape using a thick piece of raw cork, a variety of sturdy twigs, sheet moss, glue and vine tendrils for a little extra for detail. A piece like this is perfect in a well lit foyer, on a shelf, or as a table centerpiece. Branches that are harder work best like Manzanita or Willow.

When selecting your piece of raw cork for this project go for something thick. The piece we used is approximately 3 inches thick, 21 inches in length and about 6 inches in depth.

Determine which side of the cork you want to face outward if it’s to be placed on a shelf or table. If it’s a centerpiece you want one that looks good from every side.

Get your lengths of branches ready (length is up to you). We kept ours between 8 to 12 inches. Determine where you want them on your cork – this is all up to how you want it to look visually. We usually stay with an odd number and used 3 for this piece. Also, when cutting the end to insert into the cork, cut at an angle leaving a point at the end of your branch.

Make a hole in the cork where you want to insert your branch. Cork is very soft so it won’t take a lot of effort to make a hole. We just pounded a screwdriver about 1inch into the cork but anything pointy will work.

Next, we generously coated the pointy end of the branch with E6000 glue and inserted each branch into it’s hole in the cork. If there is any glue squishing out of the hole, just cover it with a little bit of sheet moss.

Next, glue the base of your Tillandsia (air plant) to the cork. It looks best if you cluster them in one area or at least put the largest plant clustered with the branches.

The branches we used needed a little bit of something extra so we cut of some vine tendrils from dead vines we had outdoors and glued several of them to the branches. The vines themselves wouldn’t have worked for this project as they are not hard enough. So we had to glue each individual tendril on …one at a time – it was a little frustrating and time consuming. But hey, we loved the way it turned out!

Dress it up with a little bit of sheet moss where the glue is noticeable and you are done with your landscape. Give it about 24 hours to dry thoroughly before spritzing your air plant with a little water.

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