Plants - Live or Plastic

[barebones]

yes I have noticed most of them are clueless which is why i'm now on here looking for advise.

 

[summoner12]

yes I have noticed most of them are clueless which is why i'm now on here looking for advise.

excellent!

 

[Olimpia]

once a day I hold up a leave to her mouth and mist the leaf and she drinks from it. I am however considering adding some real plants to help out my humidity.

That sounds like a needless amount of work! It's more natural for her (an easier for you!) to get her at least one nice live plant and let her drink from it naturally, like a wild chameleon would. The benefit is that live plants raise the humidity a great deal in the cage, which is only a benefit to her.

 

[Elizadolots]

My cages (and chameleons) are really small, but each has one live plant. I hung a pothos in the middle of each cage. I also have some fake plants to provide "hiding space" in each cage. Beyond the bump in humidity, it seems to me that my chameleons prefer to drink off real leaves rather than plastic leaves and while they both act as though misting them was some sort of "Full Silkwood" experience, they both climb into their pothos plants once they are wet to sort of .... I don't know... be wet?

 

[dreamforthedead]

I used fake plants up until two weeks ago because i didn't think i would be able to keep the live 1s alive and didn't know which one's to buy. But from getting info on here on what live plants are safe i now have 2 weeping figs and 2 umbrella plants. They look so much better, keep the humidity up and my cham really seems to love them. Real plants are so much better.

 

[frankie-gush]

Ziggy had fake plants for his first 4 years, and a mix of both for his last 2. Now i'm using a mix of both again for Ace.
Live are great, and easier to keep than i originally thought, and I only started using them when i joined here. Fake just fill in the missing places

 

[apondozzi]

When I see fake plants, I just think it's kind of lazy. I do use Biovine, but wood and vine dry up and rot. I don't consider Biovine a fake plant, more or less an obstacle course. Other than that, I don't see any advantages of fake plants whatsoever in a chameleon enclosure. If you get the right plants (ficus benjamina, schleffra, pothos, etc.) not only do they look amazing, add to the humidity, and give our chams great hiding spots, they also do very well in the same environment that your chameleon would. so keeping up with real plants isn't really an issue so long as your husbandry is up to par to begin with (keeping up with misting, dripping, etc.) Plants in an enclosure will generally see more light and water than many peoples' house plants. I live in an apartment and there's still enough space to do any sort of repotting or whatever slight gardening might be needed. I used to think fake vines were a good idea, but they absorb so much water and look so lame, why not just get a pothos? Perhaps if you were a veiled owner than plants would be more of a touchy subject?

 

[summoner12]

I have great luck with ficus, scheflera and pothos. I use ficus and scheflera in cages and I use the pothos in the free range. My biggest issue with pothos is the mealy bugs.... I've had to move these plants out of the free range because they have mealy bugs and I don't want that to spread.

 

[iLik3LIzards]

Had fake, now have live

I just recently transitioned from an all plastic to an all live plant enclosure. It's very obvious the lil guy perfers real plants. He now carries nice bright and soft colors like lime green and the softest baby blue ive ever seen as opposed to the dark green, black where the blue is now and other dark colors. He's not nearly as aggresive, hes now extremely mobile, before he'd generally chill out in one area. Have not noticed any difference in eating habbits though. He still wont cup feed must be hand fed. But yeah, live plants all the way, oorah.

 

[Nixehface]

I use both too.
Fakes because they look nice (flowers) and for hiding and filling those empty spots in my enclosure.
Real because it's just nice to have a live plant in there for him. Sadly my live plants make NO difference to my humidity levels though

 

[nobbyT]

I use only living plants ....
Cause ,im a gardener and i hate plastic plants

 

[Cainschams]

I use all real plants even in my baby tubs now. I like all real for obvious reasons and they look good. For baby tubs I use either pothos clippings or pothos planted into a cut in half dixie cup so its not to tall for the babies to get out. When I use clippings I switch them out every day when I clean. If you have the amount you need in the tubs and the same amount in a cup of water they usually last a long time switching them every day. They do eventually die but I have tons of pothos. Not to mention they grow very quickly and I usually only have a few tubs of babies at a time.

 

[ijmccollum]

Mostly live but use some fake filler.

 

[aspirin54]

I used plastic and got Pocket a ficus and think that was the best decision. Easier to maintain humidity levels, another food source, why not?

 

[RobandJess]

We have 6 live plants and 2 fake vines, we have the fake vines for the top of the cage, where it is nearly impossible to put real plants. He munches on all the live plants but never tried to eat the fake ones. He enjoys hanging out in them a lot.

 

[Eszzie]

I'm using plastic plants to cover up some sides of my screen cage. Makes it possible for my quadricornis to blend in a bit more. In the middle of the cage i'm using big live plants and moss at the bottom to keep up humidity level and make possibe for my chameleon to drink more as the drops aren't drying up as fast on live plants as they do on plastic ones. In my veiled's cage i'm only using live plants like ferns,orchids, bromeliad's and palm trees.

 

[Hoj]

i just use a combination of both live and fake plants seems to give me the benifits of live with the options that fake plants and vines provide.

 

[rcutchens]

You will see the occasional artificial vine in pictures of my enclosures.
I use them to fill spaces and add cover where real plants just won't go.
99% real plants here though for all the obvious reasons.

-Brad

I'm on the same page as Brad. I think the real plants are just a lot more...well, REAL! They offer a more realistic environment and there's the added benefit that they should help keep moisture/humidity higher, (though I struggle with keeping it high in Rico's cage I wonder what it would be without live plants,) but I did use some fake plants primarily for asthetic but also functional reasons. I wanted the back of Rico's cage to be visually appealing while providing him with additional elements to explore and climb in so I drapped fake viney plants, Exo Terro Jungle Plants, down the back of the cage so that they fall behind the real plants rising up from the bottom and create a kind of curtain. It works well for Rico's setup and I think it looks nice as well because it really give a tropical forrest-like backdrop that would be possible but difficult to achieve with live plants, IMHO.

Still, Rico has five live plants in his cage and he does explore those from time to time as well.

https://www.chameleonforums.com/members/rcutchens-albums-rico-s-world.html

 

[Texas Panther Man]

Presently I use only live plants in all my enclosures. Although i do use bio vine for highways and perches. I also use grape vine but its harder to work wih than the bio vine. Been contemplating addin some fake to the top to fill in some bare areas but I hate fake plants with a passion.

 

[sdheli420]

I was always taught.."If you have plastic chameleons, use plastic plants"...an old world chameleon needs its surroundings to be as close to the real thing as possible..( if your real plants are dying, drainage, water supply, light, heat, and humidity are wrong) a chameleon should be ALOT harder to keep alive and growing than a simple ficus tree ( i have a 27 year old one ive had my whole life..ok i got it from my mom when i was 7..but she had it since a few years after i was born)