Ferns Temperamental but Worth the Trouble : Greens: Despite their finicky ways, ferns have long been among the most popular house plants.
“How’s your fern?”
Once a humorous greeting offered by Steve Allen, this has always been and will continue to be a serious question to indoor gardeners.
Every year, millions of indoor plant enthusiasts wrestle with the sometimes difficult task of keeping ferns alive in a home environment. Whether they be the most traditional of ferns: the Boston fern, the most difficult of ferns: the maidenhair fern, or something in between, such as bird’s nest fern, button fern or rabbit’s foot fern, ferns require a bit more TLC than your average foliage plants.
Despite their temperamental ways, ferns have long been among the most popular house plants. They represent everything lacy and delicate, and continue to be ubiquitous in Southern California indoor gardening plots.
“Ferns are consistently among our top three sellers,” says Jane McCullough, indoor gardening manager at Armstrong’s, the Home and Garden Place, in West Los Angeles.
McCullough, who began her horticultural career as a naturalist with a degree in parks and recreation management, brought her outdoor greenery interest indoors several years ago.
Ferns are of particular interest to her, a fact reflected in the extremely large and varied selection to be found at Armstrong’s.
“The key to raising ferns successfully is finding just the right spot,” McCullough said. “Ferns need bright, but indirect light--an eastern exposure is usually best. And they need lots of humidity and plenty of water.”
Ferns are among the very small group of plants (conifers are another) that don’t produce flowers, reproducing instead by forming spores.
In fact, that’s why Don Wood, by day a telecommunications technician and by night the president of the Los Angeles International Fern Society, took up growing ferns as a hobby.
“The great thing about ferns,” said Wood, who has close to 500 ferns both indoors and out, “is you don’t have to worry about getting the darn things to flower!”
Keeping them in lush, verdant good health is a full-time job, however, so herewith follows a lineup of some of the most commonly available ferns and care instructions for each:
Boston Fern: (Nephrolepsis exaltata bostoniensis). The most popular fern, the fern most synonymous with life in Southern California (e.g., “Fern Bars”), it can tolerate higher temperature than most ferns but dry heat can be deadly.
Give your Boston fern a bright, cool location--a northern window or a filtered eastern exposure is perfect.
Water it thoroughly at least once a week. Let it just barely dry out then water it thoroughly again. When watering, lift the fronds and water the soil so as not to rot the fronds at the crown. Mist daily--ferns need lots of humidity.
Cut away any dead fronds at each watering. These are natural--old fronds die off to make room for new growth. The threadlike runners ferns send out are supposed to produce buds, then new plants. But it rarely happens indoors, so cut them off if you like.
The key to succeeding with a Boston fern is to hang it or put it on a stand. Never set it on the floor, a table or a shelf. The plant needs adequate air circulation: The fronds must be able to breathe or the plant will quickly dry out and turn brown.
Here’s another tip: If you’ve got an outdoor area, buy two Boston ferns and rotate them. Keep one outdoors in the shade for a week while the other graces your breakfast area or bathroom. Then reverse them. A biweekly outdoor spring and summer vacation really perks up a fern.
According to McCullough and other fern lovers, the hardiest of the Bostons is a new hybrid called “Dallas fern.” “It’s generally hardier and less likely to drop leaves,” McCullough said.
Bird’s Nest Fern: (Asplenium nidus). I love this plant. Its beautiful rosette of spreading bright green fronds and the ever-present new fronds unfurling from its brown, almost mossy center make it a very interesting and striking specimen.
Although most bird’s nest ferns offered commercially are just a few inches to a foot or so tall--usually in four-or six-inch pots--I’ve also seen really huge ones that are at least five or six feet tall and wide enough to make an ostrich comfortable.
This plant needs filtered eastern or northern light, but high humidity is critical. You don’t need greenhouse conditions, but without enough humidity the edges of the leaves will turn brown and unsightly quickly. Keep the plant near a humidifier if possible. And remember: Like all ferns, this plant likes lots of water.
You propagate bird’s nest ferns--all ferns, for that matter--by sowing the spores that will appear on the undersides of the fronds. These will look like neat rows of round black objects. Lightly scrape them off into a paper bag and let them dry in the bag for three or four days. Then plant them in a tray of damp vermiculite. Keep the tray warm and the seeds should germinate within two or three weeks.
Button Fern: (Pellaea rotundifolia). This is a really attractive plant--low growing and spreading, with small, round, dark green leaves and fuzzy stems. As with most ferns, the key to success with a button fern is giving the plant lots of humidity. Keep it on a pebble tray filled with water, spray it daily, keep a humidifier nearby (for your health as well)--actually, it will do best in a terrarium.
Without this sort of extreme humidity, it’s likely to wither up and die within a few weeks after purchase. But despite being somewhat temperamental, button fern can be grown successfully in a cool, northern exposure as long as you’re willing to watch it carefully and give it the TLC it needs.
Irish Lace Fern: (Nephrolepsis exaltata “verona”). If I were forced to pick my very favorite fern from the standpoint of sheer lush beauty, I suspect it would be the Irish lace fern. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, of course, but I think you’ll love the look of this plant too.
The Irish lace fern is technically a dwarf variety of Boston fern, except that its light green fronds are much finer and lacier and far more delicate. The plant grows in a tight, dense manner that completely hides the soil and just begs you to reach out and stroke it. And it’s best that you do, because the Irish lace fern is among the most challenging plants to grow that I know of. But worth it!
After failing twice while trying to grow the plant in a terrarium, where it rotted for want of air, and twice more with plants in an eastern exposure, I finally tried to grow an Irish lace fern in a northern window.
I placed the plant on a pebble tray and set up a small humidifier--which I kept on almost constantly--about four feet away. I watered the plant from the bottom, and fertilized every other week.
The result has been a successful run of almost five years--probably the most rewarding plant experience I’ve ever had!
Maidenhair Fern: (Adiantum raddianum). It’s almost impossible to resist buying this plant. Definitely among the most beautiful of all ferns--because of its dark green fronds, dainty, feather-formed leaves and extraordinarily lacy lushness--the soft, delicate maidenhair fern must go into a terrarium.
Like most ferns, the maidenhair requires very special care: Keep it in a terrarium where it gets no more than filtered eastern light (a northern exposure is preferable), keep the soil moist and, even though it’s in a terrarium, you’ll have to spray at least once or twice a day to maintain enough humidity.
Sound like too much hassle? Then buy a small inexpensive maidenhair fern--something in a four-inch pot--and enjoy it while it lasts. But be warned that unless you provide the plant with the optimum, almost greenhouse conditions that I’ve described, your maidenhair fern will be just a potful of brown, organic crepe paper within a few weeks.
Rabbit’s Foot Fern: (Davalia fejeensis). This beautiful, unusual fern gets its nickname from the brown, hairy footlike roots (known botanically as rhizomes) that creep over the sides of the pot. The fronds are light green and delicate and grown on dark brown, wiry stems.
Like all ferns, this plant needs indirect light, lots of water and lots of spraying. It would love an occasional vacation outdoors in a shady spot. A couple of weeks two or three times a year during mild days (bring it in at night) will perk it up considerably.
Again, in cultivating the rabbit’s foot fern keep in mind that ferns do not like bright light and dry heat.
Staghorn Fern: (Platycerium bifurcatum) . If you’ve got the room, a staghorn fern is really a dramatic plant. Hung on a board on a wall, this striking plant could be mistaken for a hunter’s trophy. Its leathery, gray-green fronds grow up to three feet long, spreading from their base to form two or three wide forks at the tips of the fronds.
The staghorn fern--an epiphytic plant--is easy to raise. Make sure it gets only filtered light. The key to success, though, is frequent misting.
You can propagate new staghorn ferns from the offsets that grow at the base of the plant. These will look like miniature staghorns--because that’s what they are. Remove them from the sides of the mother plant with a sharp knife or a single-edged razor blade, then plant them in four-inch pots filled with a mixture of half sphagnum moss and half potting mix.
When the plants have developed at least a six-inch wingspan they can be attached to a redwood board or planted in a wire basket filled with sphagnum moss.
Table Fern: (Pteris spp.) . This is another excellent terrarium plant. Usually, when offered for sale, the table fern will be small, about three or four inches tall and two or three inches across. Its leathery, bright green fronds are sometimes variegated with white or cream-colored markings. These graceful fronds grow on dark-brown, wirelike stems.
Because this plant loves shade and humidity, the best place to grow it is in a terrarium or bottle garden. If you want to grow it outside of a terrarium, keep it in a northern exposure, keep the soil moist at all times, spray it at least twice a day and keep it on a pebble tray. Without lots of humidity, your pteris will dry up and die.
It also helps to grow this plant in a soil mixture of two thirds-potting mix and one-third peat moss.
Asparagus Fern: (Asparagus densiflorus sprengerii). Although it’s not really a fern (it’s a member of the lily family), here’s another durable house plant that most people think of as a fern, which makes it worth discussing in this context. With its thin, bright green fernlike stems and feathery needlelike foliage, asparagus fern (which is not an asparagus, either--it gets its name because new fronds appear looking like tiny, thin asparagus stalks as they slowly begin to unfurl)--makes a great hanging plant in front of a bright window or enclosed sun porch.
Another variety, A. meyerii, looks like erect, green “foxtails” and is most rewarding on a sunny windowsill. Both varieties will produce red and yellow berries that contain the seeds from which new plants can be grown.
Asparagus ferns are relatively easy to grow if you follow these care instructions: Make sure your plant gets plenty of light--too little light and the needles will be falling continuously, creating an unsightly plant--not to mention a housekeeping problem.
Asparagus ferns will benefit from an occasional outdoor vacation in the shade. Also, repot your asparagus fern when its bulbous roots emerge from beneath the soil. If you don’t want to put it into a bigger pot, trim the root system when it gets too big.
If you’d like more information on how to become a member of the Los Angeles International Fern Society, which has 400 members in 20 states and eight countries, you can write to P.O. Box 90943, Pasadena, Calif. 91109.
According to President Don Wood, the fern society puts fern lovers in contact with other fern lovers, publishes a journal that includes lessons on fern care and lists of sources for unusual and exotic ferns, and the group even keeps a spore bank for especially difficult to obtain plants.
