Oh Festive Tillandsia, Oh Festive Tillandsia

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Allow me to introduce to you yet another alternative to the Christmas Tree.

A few weeks back I bought this tiny $3.00 string of miniature LED lights meant for creating miniature Winter Wonderlands. I have a thing for miniatures that stems from repeated childhood trips to the Hobby Shop to visit the rotating display of doll house props for a doll house that would never be. I have to admit that I didn’t really care about the doll house as a play object but rather imagined it as a vessel to hold all those neat miniature Victorian-era do-dads. I just love tiny things and dioramas: tiny food packaging, tiny figurines, tiny ghetto blasters, HO scale anything… everything is more fun in miniature form.

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Since I do not have space to store, let alone display the props of a Winter Wonderland (although I do collect HO scale models for a possible future giant diorama that will never be) I thought the lights would be best put to use draped over a small plant. This Tillandsia streptophylla* is larger than my outstretched hand and doesn’t particularly match the scale of the lights, however I enjoy turning them on at night, pausing while reading a book to gaze up at the brightly illuminated bulbs.

*Note that my Tillandsia is starting to put out a flower stalk from the centre!

Gayla Trail
Gayla is a writer, photographer, and former graphic designer with a background in the Fine Arts, cultural criticism, and ecology. She is the author, photographer, and designer of best-selling books on gardening, cooking, and preserving.

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7 thoughts on “Oh Festive Tillandsia, Oh Festive Tillandsia

  1. Hi there! I just read your composting bin post and had one question for you – during winter do your composting habits, bin location, or anything else change to compensate for the cold?

    Thanks!
    Erikka

  2. i love your idea, gayla. i have a dwarf tree that i’d like to make into a christmas tree…these LED lights (i have a thing for LED lights) would be perfect – and $3 is a steal!

  3. Where did you find those cute little mini lights?
    We decorate a potted norfolk pine every year but it’s delicate for regular lights. These would be perfect!

  4. This may just be my mother hen tendency coming out…Gayla, I think you need to have kids. That whole miniature HO scale obsession you have will nurture and grow to monstrous proportions..like a house filled with spider plants ;o)

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