While you wait for spring to roll around, amuse yourself with air plants, like this Tillandsia Curly Slim. Ahmed/Shutterstock

If you’re like me, you’re a Maine gardener who gets a little bored in winter. Sure, you may tend to some houseplants, but ordinary houseplants don’t change much from winter to winter, so where’s the fun? If you’re seeking a challenge to keep you entertained until spring, try  growing air plants.

There are more than 550 species, and all are native to Central and South America. In the tropics, air plants attach themselves to other plants. But they are not parasites, stealing nutrition from those plants. They grab onto them for physical support.

Air plants (Latin name: Tillandsia) come in two basic types. Some, usually those with green foliage, have glossy, flexible leaves and develop roots. They thrive in pots containing what amounts to bark chips, similar to the medium often used for cacti or orchids.

Bromeliads are among the most popular of this type. My wife and I have grown these with a bit of success over the years. Interestingly, they don’t take in nutrition or water through their roots. Instead, they develop a tall cup in the middle of the plant. To keep the bromeliads alive, you fill these cups with water. You may have seen bromeliads in planters at the mall or in your dentist’s waiting room. It doesn’t take a Luther Burbank to realize that a plant that survives in a such benign neglect situation should flourish in a thoughtful home environment.

Although you won’t get fruit at home, pineapples are in the same family as bromeliads. A patient gardener could very well root the top that’s cut off a ripe pineapple.

The second type of air plants have gray foliage, are typically scaly, and they have few — if any — roots.

Both types grow in the tropics so they like fairly warm temperatures, between 55 to 85 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a Maine home, bromeliads can be grown in pots filled with houseplant potting mix. When you fill the rosette cup, the soil also needs to be watered. A clay pot is best because a well-nurtured bromeliad can be 8 to 10 inches tall, so the heavy pot counters that height. At one time we had a collection of about 10 bromeliad plants growing quite happily in our dry, cool Maine house.

That said, the atmosphere in most Maine homes in winter is very dry, which these plants do not like. At Allen, Sterling & Lothrop in Falmouth, the staff soaks its air plants in a bath of warm water once or twice a week, and sometimes mists them, according to Director of Horticulture Bill Kinney. They may also do well grown near a vaporizer or humidifier. While some websites recommend adding orchid fertilizer to the water when you soak the plants, it isn’t necessary.

In the tropics, both types of Tillandsia prefer indirect sunlight, but Maine is so far north, the plants will stand some direct sunlight early in the day, Kinney said.

One challenge with air plants is placement. You will have to provide a place for them to hang. Online photos show people affixing them to the bottom of chains hanging from the ceiling, but not everyone will want to put holes in a ceiling. Some websites suggest hooks with magnets that can be placed on a refrigerator, but most refrigerators aren’t placed near windows to provide indirect light. Also, the plants may get in the way of opening and closing the fridge.

Although Tillandsia are tropical, one Maine native does grow in a similar way: Moss, botanically Bryophyta, latches onto stone, tree trunks, sidewalks, our back patio, garden fences and ornaments but, like air plants, gets its nutrition from passing water and air.

The only place I’ve seen moss inside our house is on the outside of a few clay pots, and I try to ignore it there.

Tom Atwell is a freelance writer gardening in Cape Elizabeth. He can be contacted at: tomatwell@me.com.