I have spent the last hour trying to download a pic of this darn fern. I give up! Most of you know what a staghorn looks like anyway - sooo... My question is about the Green shields that grow at the base of the fern and later turn brown. One side of this 12" pot is full of these dead looking shields, leaving little room for the new pups to grow. Are these brown things necessary for the life of the plant or simply extraneous or dead material. Do I dump it out on a table and cut away the dead stuff or just repot the whole thing in a bigger pot to give more room? I tried to pull out some of the brown stuff and it's very attached to the mostly orchid bark I have it growing in. Help! Barb
There are a number of "staghorn" fern species. The most common is Platycerium alcicorne Most growers don't grow them in a pot at all but instead allow them to grow around a wire basket that has a coconut liner and is filled with a mixture of sand, potting soil, peat moss and orchid bark. When we started our plant with 3 tiny pieces we simply went to Home Depot and bought a steel wire pot basket plus a liner. We filled it with a near equal mixture of the the components listed but used more sand than soil. The original pieces were then tied to the wire with their bases stuck through the coconut liner so they could gain moisture from the potting mix. Within a year the plant had encapsulated basket and year after year it grew over itself to increase its own size. Our plant is currently 8 feet across and is housed in an artificial rain forest. I would never recommend removing the shield. Every year a new green one grows over the old one which is how the plant increases in size. Despite commonly given advice this species likes bright light and is now hanging from the rafters of our atrium. The Lexan cuts the light roughly in half but the plant didn't really begin to grow until we hung it so it could gather lots of light. You can find a photo here: http://www.exoticrainforest.com/Platycerium alicorne pc.html The photo shown is two years old and the plant has grown substantially since then adding many new fronds. We recently had to have it taken down and reinforced with a steel rod to hold the weight. I have a friend in Miami, FL that has a specimen hanging from an oak tree that was 14 feet across the last time I saw it in September.
Thank you Steve. I'll find a wire basket and do as you suggest. Unfortunately, I won't be able to hang it outside. We are already flirting with near freezing temps so it stays in the house. It sits back 6 ft from from a wall (dining rm, stair well, and living room) of West facing windows, so I think the lighting is OK. I have to break it apart every 2 yrs or so and give parts away. I like the way yours looks. I did that same thing with a Rosery Vine on a smaller scale and it seems quite happy. I love it when someone walks in the house and says OMG what's that! Thanks again....barb
Barbara, they are very impressive and I'd hate to have to take mine apart. We've been offered some serious cash for it but my wife would kill me! People in Miami have paid $500 or more for one half the size of the one we've managed to grow. In this photo it is a bit difficult to see but about 1/4th of the plant can be seen hanging in the upper left hand corner.
Another question for you. How do you water it? Turn a hose on it - which you can do but I can't. Can it be dipped in a tub of room temp. water Then drained? How often? I don't imagine just misting will do. I'm pushing Seventy - Hard and I don't lift things well anymore, but I can get around that unless it gets huge. barb
We have a misting system hanging above all the plants. This specimen is directly under one of the lines. During the summer we mist for 8 minutes four days a week due to the heat and during the winter 2 minutes per day but only three days per week. I wouldn't think a quick "dunk" would hurt so long as the plant can drain quickly. If the shield is filled with a pot of dirt I'd make the "dunk" really fast since soil will stay wet much longer than the mixture we use. Before we hung this one we used to just water it well with a garden hose but a good long mist would likely be better since the species loves high humidity. Try buying a cheap tank sprayer, fill it with water, add a small amount of liquid fertilizer and just mist it until it is really damp. I used the mix in our plant due to the recommendations of two growers in Miami that had very large specimens. One used his plant to take starts which were sold through a fern nursery. Lots of growers just attach the plant to a slab or cork since in the wild they are epiphytes (epi-FIT) and grow on the trunk of a tree. You sound like a very active gardner and I'm not far behind in age. That's why I had the misting system installed
I'm not all that active except when it comes to the house plants. My Daughter is my hands and my help. She has a 1 1/2 Qt Delta pressure Sprayer, that both spays and puts out a stream, she uses in the house. That should work on the plant. With your kind directions we can get this plant in it's right place. barb ;))
