What is up everyone? Welcome back to another awesome week here on the Epic

Gardening podcast. I am joined today by Josh Rosen of Air Plant Man, his

websites airplant man. So Josh Rosen of Air Plant Man, his website's Air Plant Man.

So if you couldn't already tell by the name,

this week we're going to be talking about that unique plant,

the Air Plant, or that family of plants, I guess you could say, and Josh, what got you into air plants in the first place?

Because it's a very specific type of plant and then could we kind of give everyone a primer on what these are?

Because I feel like there are some of the most misunderstood plants out there.

Hi Kevin, yeah, great to chat with you today and help clear up some of the misinformation out there and

teach people a little bit more about this incredible genus of plants and when you

say Air Plant what we're commonly referring to are telansia that is a genus within the

bramiliad family and they have over 600 different species in there so it's it's

really diverse of all these plants that fall under that

common name air plant and how they're often what's unique about them is this

ability to absorb everything they need through their leaves.

They have sort of broken with the main thing that we would associate with plants, which is kind of growing out of the earth,

and instead they have learned how to absorb water and nutrients right through their leaf surface, allowing them to live absolutely anywhere up in the trees on telephone wires, bare faces, wherever they can find a good little

spot to hang on. So, okay, so it's true then that they literally do not need soil

at all so that they are true to their name of air plants there but

how is that actually happening in the plant like what what structures in the

plant actually allow that to take place? But yeah that's a great question and it is the specialized leaf surface that allows them to do this.

And so a Talanzia's leaf is covered in something called tricomes and these amazing adaptations is basically a wing-like shaped dead leaf cell that can protect the leaf surface from harsh light and desiccation or

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