Hardy Tropicals UK

I am posting on behalf of my mum(fremma).


If you look at these pictures you can see there are ferns growing out of the root low down. Can this be normal . If not is it worth pulling out. If so can u pot it and would it reroot and grow.





Sorry for the bad pictures but you get the idea.

I take it the adult fern is alive with a full head of fronds? What Tree fern is it?

I've not seen this myself, although at a guess it could be spores from the adult that have settled in the trunk and are growing? If this is the case it is likely to be very hard to get them out without damage, although maybe if you let them grow for a few weeks/months and try to carefully dig them out? I doubt they will survive a frost though. Keep us updated, very interesting to see.

Almost certainly spores from the adult fern, where the trunk has remained damp throughout the summer for 2 years. The 2 longest planted Dicksonia antarctica I have, have 1 each. but Delboy Dicksonia antarctica who has fronds out over the pond, produced a forest of sporelings in marginal pots where the compost never dries out. I have not been able to keep the ground damp enough to produce them.

Never done it with mine, but from my experience of that type of plant, to harvest, I'd leave for a year of 2 until the fernling has a caudex, then gently try wiggling it out. If you don't get any roots, you could remove all the fronds, and place in the warm, very damp place and it may regrow. Not sure if anyone here has tried this already. Think Arlon has. I'm sure Arlon gets these naturally on his, but South Wales is much more damp and humid than Kent in summer.

You could try putting pots in dishes of water (never to dry out) under the ferns, and grow yourself self sown sporelings.

Basically west is easier than east for getting these to grow.

Quite likely a sporeling but there are some Dicksonias that will produce new crowns around the base. As far as I know D. antarctica doesnt but some of the NZ ones do I think.

Id be tempted to pack some sphagnum moss around it to encourage roots to grow out so that if you decide to remove it you will be able to do so with a stronger roots system.

Troppoz wrote:Quite likely a sporeling but there are some Dicksonias that will produce new crowns around the base. As far as I know D. antarctica doesnt but some of the NZ ones do I think.

Id be tempted to pack some sphagnum moss around it to encourage roots to grow out so that if you decide to remove it you will be able to do so with a stronger roots system.

Yes D squarrosa is definitely a clumper, not sure about others.

Good call on the moss Sean, The fernlings I have are very low down on the trunk so I will probably leave in situ
as I love the multiheads and clumps. Most of my sporelings were in a pot of Colocasia Black Beauty, which I kept growing and damp over winter. Coming to think about it I don't think Dicksonia antarctica sporelings would survive the -7C of last winter if away from the trunk.

This 5 foot Dicksonia was purchased at the beginning of the month from Seagraves, our 2nd one this year..
They are both excellent.
There are 6 shoots appearing on the trunk and they are growing fast.
On your advice we will leave them there as long as we can before winter and then remove, pot them up and see what happens.
All a learning curve.
To save any confusion my son B19 BST posted this topic originally for me as it takes me ages....

great looking garden......

Fremma, it looks like the crown on those is fine, so I presume they are sporelings on the trunk not branches. If that is the case it doesn't look like they were as dried out for shipment like many.

Dave Brown wrote: Yes D squarrosa is definitely a clumper, not sure about others.

My understanding is that squarrosa is the only dicksonia that "pups" . So far this year i've detached two from my original plant and they both have spans of about 2ft now. A relatively quick grower i believe compared to others.

Dave Brown wrote: Never done it with mine, but from my experience of that type of plant, to harvest, I'd leave for a year of 2 until the fernling has a caudex, then gently try wiggling it out. If you don't get any roots, you could remove all the fronds, and place in the warm, very damp place and it may regrow. Not sure if anyone here has tried this already. Think Arlon has. I'm sure Arlon gets these naturally on his

I get quite a lot of sporelings at the base of my Dicksonia antarctica's. What they are / will turn out to be i don't know, could be anything. Here's a batch i took out a few weeks ago that are doing nicely..........
and probably about another dozen or so developing again..............
I detach mine when they are big enough to handle. They're quite tricky to get out even when that small as the tiny roots get a good grip on the donor trunk fibres etc. Often i take the old donor leaf base / fur with it and pot it up like that to save any root damage Leaving them longer would result in root damage imo and make them even more difficult to extract.
Last year i made the mistake of growing them on in the greenhouse which they didn't like and i had a high failure rate, tooooo hot 'n' dry i would think. This year they are outside nestled amongst the ferns, semi shaded etc and take whatever the weather comes along and they look much better for it. No failures so far

Lovely garden Fremma! Could these new plants be Acacia? They grow quickly and need to be removed asap.

Tom2006 wrote:Lovely garden Fremma! Could these new plants be Acacia? They grow quickly and need to be removed asap.

I've had Acacia and they don't unfurl like in B19's pic.