Air plants are low-maintenance. However, if yours are looking droopy, shriveled, or brown, they may be in need of some extra care.
Thankfully, reviving air plants is not that hard.
There are many quick fixes like trimming off the dead, affected branches or immersing the plant in water
If the entire plant looks damaged, reviving it might be difficult. If you see splashes of living color on the leaves, then there’s hope. Here we provide two easy solutions to inject life into your air plants.
Soak It Overnight
Soaking the air plants should be your first call of action. It’s the best way to revive air plants. If you’re short on time, you can submerge the plants underwater for 6-8 hours. This will give them ample time to soak up all the moisture and nutrients.
The best method of soaking is to do it overnight. Start by pouring lukewarm water into a big bowl that’s deep enough to soak the entire air plant. The ideal level of the water should be 1-2 inches below the bowl’s lip. That will ensure consistently and enough hydration for the plant.
Once you’re certain that the plants are good to go, limit the soaking to once a week or two weeks. However, cut the duration short to only 15-20 minutes. Be careful of the weather at this stage. If it’s too humid, avoid soaking.
You can reduce the frequency in winters as the air plants won’t be needing much hydration. In summers, submerging them underwater a few hours every week will do.
Remove Dead Leaves
The second super-easy and natural method is removing any dead leaves. Allowing them to hang on can restrict air circulation and sunshine absorption of the fresh leaves. You can do this by gently tugging at the leaves. They’ll come off if they’re dead and brown.
If tugging causes the entire plant to fall apart, you’re in for some bad news. Your air plant might have died already. The key to reviving it is to look for green, healthy leaves on the plant. But if there aren’t any, you will have to discard the air plant.
Removing dead leaves will allow healthier leaves to come to the surface. Since air plants get their nutrients and moisture from the atmosphere, this is very important. You may even realize that tugging off dead leaves was all you needed for the plant to jump back to life.
