Air plants are epiphytes, which means they grow without soil. They grow naturally on tree limbs or trunks, and can easily be grown in a terrarium indoors—usually those clear round balls people hang in their windows. They do need watering once a week, and then they need to be allowed to dry out before they are watered again so they won't rot, but otherwise it is pretty hard to kill an air plant. Some garden shops even call them "unkillable," which is surprising since it looks like we have managed to kill one.
A neighbor gave us a staghorn fern. It is large, probably weighing in at about forty pounds. No, we did not kill that one, which would have amounted to burying good money in the ground. Those things are worth a pretty penny. Our neighbor has been offered several hundred dollars for her hundred pound specimen. But we did remove two of the babies from ours, place them in nylon netting and then hang them on one of live oak trunks. One is doing great, already producing more fronds, but the other is on its last legs, so to speak. It has been that way for at least two months, which tells me this: air plants may not be unkillable, but they certainly take a long time to die.
I think I have seen a few air plants on the pews on Sunday mornings. I guess they take in enough nutrients from the "atmosphere" they sit in to hang on for a good while. Yet they never grow, they never bloom and put out new growth, and eventually they turn brittle and gray. Finally they starve to death and completely dry up. You would, too, if you only ate one small meal a week.
Those spiritual air plants may take years to finally give it up. The thing is, even a dry, gray air plant can be revived with a good soak in the water. If we find ourselves at death's spiritual door, we need a good soak in the Living Water to revive us. After that, it's up to us to keep on growing, taking in what we need to not only survive, but thrive. Then we can truly be "unkillable."
Be horrified at this, heavens; be shocked and utterly appalled. This is the LORD’s declaration. For My people have committed a double evil: They have abandoned Me, the fountain of living water, and dug cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that cannot hold water. (Jer 2:12-13)
Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again. But whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again — ever! In fact, the water I will give him will become a well of water springing up within him for eternal life.” (John 4:13-14)
Dene Ward
A neighbor gave us a staghorn fern. It is large, probably weighing in at about forty pounds. No, we did not kill that one, which would have amounted to burying good money in the ground. Those things are worth a pretty penny. Our neighbor has been offered several hundred dollars for her hundred pound specimen. But we did remove two of the babies from ours, place them in nylon netting and then hang them on one of live oak trunks. One is doing great, already producing more fronds, but the other is on its last legs, so to speak. It has been that way for at least two months, which tells me this: air plants may not be unkillable, but they certainly take a long time to die.
I think I have seen a few air plants on the pews on Sunday mornings. I guess they take in enough nutrients from the "atmosphere" they sit in to hang on for a good while. Yet they never grow, they never bloom and put out new growth, and eventually they turn brittle and gray. Finally they starve to death and completely dry up. You would, too, if you only ate one small meal a week.
Those spiritual air plants may take years to finally give it up. The thing is, even a dry, gray air plant can be revived with a good soak in the water. If we find ourselves at death's spiritual door, we need a good soak in the Living Water to revive us. After that, it's up to us to keep on growing, taking in what we need to not only survive, but thrive. Then we can truly be "unkillable."
Be horrified at this, heavens; be shocked and utterly appalled. This is the LORD’s declaration. For My people have committed a double evil: They have abandoned Me, the fountain of living water, and dug cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that cannot hold water. (Jer 2:12-13)
Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again. But whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again — ever! In fact, the water I will give him will become a well of water springing up within him for eternal life.” (John 4:13-14)
Dene Ward
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