danger garden bromeliads, 2023 style

Last month I shared photos of the area on the northside of our garage where I usually (but not this year), sink bromeliads into a base layer of ferns. This year I decided, instead, to use the tall columns in the Southwest corner for a bromeliad display, after all, change is good...I started the project with my large vriesea (from Dick's greenhouse) on the column in the very corner. It looked fabulous, but then I left town for a week and when I returned it had been knocked to the ground (squirrels? wind?) and damaged. So I started over with a couple of much smaller plants.


The two large bowls also have an assortment of rhipsalis tucked in, to give that all important "spiller" effect. Neither of these bromeliads came with names.
The larger plants in this bowl are Aechmea recurvata.
Since this short column has a larger circumference and I didn't have a cement slab for the top, I used a piece of metal that I had on hand and just placed a bromeliad wrapped with moss on the surface.
A friend gave me a small bromeliad that was growing at a right angle to it's sturdy stem so I took advantage of that and tied it to the tetrapanax trunk in front of the corner display.

Over behind the garage my original bromeliad trashcan lid plantings (on the two columns) got a much needed refresh this year.
Old plants were pulled and new ones were tucked in.
When I first came up with this planting idea there were three conifers along the fence line just to the right, on the neighbor's side, creating a much shadier area. When those came out I was concerned the increased light might be too much for the bromeliads, but they've thrived and their coloring is so much more vibrant.
The vertical trashcan lid planting is in its 4th summer!
I honestly never thought it would last this long...
The tillandsia has been putting on a bloom show for weeks...