The first thing I had to learn when I began keeping houseplants is that not every one of them is going to survive, and that’s okay! I won’t be successful with every plant, and accepting that was pretty important for me. I’m not exactly a deep well of positivity, so working myself around to the way of thinking that it’s all a learning experience and failing doesn’t mean I can’t try again took me a bit of effort, but I got there! Well, more or less. So today I’m first going to introduce you to my failures, or at least what I consider my failures. This probably doesn’t require the lengthy telling I’m going to give it, but I’m going for it. Once I get talking about plants it’s very hard to stop!
I got my first fern on May 17th, 2016, a small little tassel fern that I found tucked away in the almost-hidden “shade plants” section of my small town’s local hardware store. I hadn’t done any research on it and didn’t know anything about it, but I fell in love with its shiny green fronds and bought it anyway. This for me is the height of spontaneity. Buying something without extensively researching and cross-researching isn’t something I like to do. I guess I really want to know what I’m getting into. What I truly didn’t know is that the purchase of this one innocent little fern was going to snowball into something much bigger. An obsession, if you will. Because as soon as I was home I settled in to the task of doing all that researching, and google is one hell of a drug. It turned out my little tassel fern wasn’t a bad first pick. I have a north-facing bedroom window that doesn’t get any kind of direct sun exposure, and on top of that I have the wall of a garage outside of it. Add to that being surrounded by tall trees on every side and you pretty much can’t get more “low light”. Most ferns, as it turns out, are pretty okay with that. I had another requirement that threw an obstacle in there after the low light situation had been dodged, and that was that all my plants must be non-toxic to cats. At the time I was in between cats, and I wasn’t about to commit to an answer one way or another if you asked me if I was likely to get another, but you know. Just in case. I didn’t need to worry however, because ferns had me covered there as well. They’re the perfect plants for me, and still my favourites, even though I’ve since branched out and tried some other kinds of plants as well. But that’s another post for another time.
You can probably guess at this point that my lovely tassel fern, the plant that started the obsession, is one of my failures, and if you guessed that you’d be right. To be fair, it is still alive, but not under parameters that I consider a resounding success. I recently found a nice place for it in the backyard and planted it there, and I’ll have to wait and see how it winters. Another great thing about many ferns is that if they start to look a bit ragged and you’re kind of embarrassed to display them in your home (I’m okay with not always succeeding, really, I just don’t want other people to know about it, that’s all) you can just plant them outside. Especially if they’re plants that most people didn’t think to bring inside in the first place. My first little fern may have borne the brunt of all my beginner mistakes (and I still have many more beginner mistakes to make), but I did recently decide to try again and got a new tassel fern which is doing beautifully so far. Who knows if it may join its senior in the backyard at some point in the future, but for now I can’t get enough of it!
I very heavily researched my second fern, a Himalayan maidenhair, before getting it. I absolutely adore maidenhair ferns, and after learning all about them I thought this one was going to perfectly suit my north-facing window. But sometimes no matter how much research you do, hands on experience is the best teacher. Maidenhairs are pretty finicky as far as ferns go, and I learned that very quickly. Like my first tassel fern, my maidenhair is still alive, but looking pretty ragged. After I got my kitten in May and he discovered how fun it is to play with my plants the temptation of my maidenhair’s long lacy fronds had to be moved to the living room where he thankfully mostly ignores it. Unfortunately, the out of sight out of mind strategy had its effects on me as well, and I’ve gone long periods forgetting to water it, which maidenhairs really don’t appreciate. Considering this it’s surprising it’s even still alive, and I’m trying to get back on top of regularly watering it. I have hopes that come next year I’ll be able to keep its new growth looking healthy and green, and I’ll never forget that feeling of pure joy I had when I first spotted my maidenhair at the plant nursery, it was love at first sight.
I got three ferns in one go the next time I went on a trip to the plant nursery, and I’m happy to report that two of them were successes! But this post is about the failures, so let’s talk about my deer fern. Fortunately I know exactly where I went wrong with this one, and it was at least a little bit out of my hands. I simply had a string of many days with bad headaches and I didn’t get to watering it, for which it never quite forgave me. I also planted this one in the backyard, where it seems to be doing a bit better, thanks to nature doing the watering for me. It has had some new growth and hopefully it will really take off next Spring.
Another victim of those same headaches was my dearly departed Alaska fern, one of only three plants that I’ve actually managed to completely kill. Even after I got back on top of watering it my Alaska fern just never recovered, but it was beautiful while it lasted, and who knows, maybe I’ll try again with another one of these in the future, I really adored it!
And finally, the one I’m probably the saddest about because I still have no idea what went wrong: my bird’s nest fern. I’m so baffled by this one, I did a lot of research on it and still can’t figure it out. I kept it well-watered but not overwatered, the humidity was high and it had enough light but not too much light, I really don’t know what more it wanted from me. It’s still alive but I’ve pretty much given up on it. I’d like to try again but since I don’t know what went wrong I don’t know what I should change, and these ferns are so slow growing, once they start looking poorly there won’t be any nice new growth to take the place of the old fronds any time soon. Maybe I’ll try again with a smaller one, so that if things don’t go well it won’t feel like as big of a loss.
Thus my failed ferns come to an end, and I’m happy to report that despite the ill fates of those listed here I have several others that have been successful, and a couple that could still go either way, and I’ll write about all of them in my next post!
Friendly Fronds 