My bark tower

Roll up some 25mm x 25mm bird wire. Use the cut tails to twist back onto itself so it is really neat. Do this with pointy nose plyers. You can use maspro rings also, it's quicker but not as neat, up to you. Fill it with bark chip and poke the plants in. Secure them with zip ties (I find this best.) Try to have them vertical so they will still hold water. After a while they multiply and clump. Leave the top open so you can fill it as the bark rots down. I have a wire disc sitting in mine so I can pull it out easily.

If you don't have a tree don't worry, you can mount them to boards, drift wood etc You can see a few of these on my fence etc. The attachment can be done with building glues or zip ties. Once again I find the zips ties quick, effective and long lasting. I like this concept as you can fill up a space on the ground and find vertical spaces to use as well; more plants in more spaces, you've got to like that :)

Just lately 30/6/18 I've started cutting up pallets to get the wood for mounting plants, I was buying some pine planks from Bunnings buy this is much cheaper. it's good to work with.

Have a go at attaching Bromeliads to a tree. This Jacaranda tree is out the front of my place on the verge. As you can see I just used the U nails below. It was really fast. Ensure the plants are upright so they still hold their water. Use plants like Aechmea "Bert". Aechmea nudicaulis, Ae recurvata, Ae fasciata Neos with stolons, Neo ampullace, Neo pineliana and Billbergias to name a few. The tougher the leaf the better it stands up to the hotter winds. It depends on the leaf cover on the tree over head as well. As you can see my big tree has the truck quite exposed. Work out the hot side and the cooler side. A lot of bromeliads are epiphytic so they handle being mounted this way quite well. You can see these broms growing this way naturally in the wild.

We can emulate this in our yards quite easily. The staples below are galvanised to stop rusting. They can be re-used if needed (though they take some wiggling out at times).

I started attaching some to a couple of Robinias trees out the front too. I seeing if the leave cover in summer and the no leaves in winter suits the process.

Remember untreated timber, Bromeliads hate CCA -Copper, Chromium and Arsenic treatment

Some mounted on the pallet wood

You might have seen the big set ups that the larger collectors, growers and wholesalers have to house their hundreds of bromeliads. Don’t be perturbed, you can still find a place for your smaller collection with some help of some shade cloth and the use of some existing structures that you may have. I’ve used wire, some shape blocks, shade cloth clips (for wood) and maspro rings to protect my plants from the elements.

Firstly, look around and see what you can anchor off, the side of the shed, the fence, a tree, a bird aviary, some cemented-in pipes and/or a combination of what you have in your yard.
Work out your area and buy your shade cloth. Consider if enough light will still come from the North East etc as the sun travels over.
I’ve joined my shade cloth by putting the edges together and pinching them together with maspro rings about every 100mm. You need to buy or borrow a set of maspro pliers for this.
Jig saw up some shaped 100mm x 40mm blocks out of “7 ply” i.e. plywood to be attached to the shade cloth where needed. The ply will not split as it is laminated. The wire will tie to these blocks once a small hole is drilled for the wire to pass through.
The blocks are attached to the corners and on any edge point (where needed) by hammering the shade cloth clip through the cloth into the wood block. The same as you would if you were going to attach the cloth to a pergola.
Run the wire through the blocks and attach it to your anchor points. Pull the wire taut gradually till the shade cloth has a flat shape about it and is tight enough not to flap around.
Additional wire can be run across the anchor points to help hold the cloth up (if needed) - you can use Turn Buckles to pull the wire tight.
Where possible have your larger structure on the south western side. This will help protect your cloth from the westerly winds and the storms that come from the south, ( the same aspect you would set up a bird aviary)

OK there you have it, fairly cheap, fairly quick, no major construction work and your obsession continues on its merry way.

Tillandsia attached to a polystyrene ball, eventually it will cluster up so you can't see the white, in time the finished result is as shown

Plastic hangers that attach to the pots - you can buy these on line and have them mailed to you. Like a lot of things the more you buy the cheaper they are.

I used a wire basket and turned it upside down and put the hanging hook through the wire so it's like a bell.

I draped and zip tied the spanish moss onto the frame like hair all the way around.

Them I added in the other tillandsia, in this case aeranthos.