There are thousands of varieties of ferns in nature, more than 200 are grown in indoor and greenhouse conditions. It is one of the most common plants used for landscaping of premises and household plots. At home, ferns are considered unpretentious plants, probably due to the ability of many species to tolerate overdraft. Another plant would simply die, but the fern, after pruning all the dried leaves (wye) and moistening the earthen coma, will grow again. However, the ability to survive in extreme conditions and still have an attractive, decorative look is not the same thing.
For a fern, it is necessary to create certain conditions so that one could say about it - handsome! Fern is one of the oldest plants on earth. In nature, it grows under the forest canopy, where it is always humid and where direct sunlight does not penetrate, so ferns do not have any devices to preserve moisture and protect against the scorching rays of the sun. Based on this, it is necessary to create appropriate conditions for their maintenance.
Nephrolepis Nephrolepis
Nephrolepis (phrolepis) is considered the most unpretentious of ferns, but it is very rare to find a specimen that would not dry out the tips of the wye. There are many varieties of nephrolepis and all of them, except miniature species, require a large volume, space for the growth of its beautiful openwork leaves, which can rise above the root neck and fan out, or can rise and fall in a fountain, reaching a length of three meters. This fern does not like cramped spaces, it needs a free flow of air, but it is afraid of drafts. In a small apartment, it is necessary either to free up a large space for nephrolepis, or to breed miniature varieties, otherwise delicate wais break if they are constantly touched, and instead of beautiful curling leaf tips, debris will stick out.
All ferns do not tolerate direct sunlight, so he will be comfortable on the windowsill if the sun looks there only in the early morning or late afternoon. Nevertheless, these plants are very photophilous and, with insufficient illumination, their fine-cut leaves become shorter, narrower, lose color saturation, i.e. look less decorative. In a bright room, where the sun is for a long time, it is better to place the fern at a short distance from the window covered with a tulle curtain.
Watering should be such that the earthen lump remains always slightly moist. If drying occurs, then part or all of the leaves will turn yellow and dry. In this case, they must be removed, put the pot in a container with standing tap water for 30 minutes, then put in a bright place, and new leaves will soon begin to grow. When watering from above, especially old, overgrown plants, it may turn out that the earthen lump is not completely wetted inside, while the leaves lose color saturation and become faded, so you can offer this method of watering: water abundantly from above, slowly until the pallet, the dimensions of which are sufficient, is filled with water. After 30 minutes, if all the water is not absorbed, then it is better to drain it. The bay is very dangerous for porters, especially young ones.
The plant is watered with soft and warm water. In winter, watering should be more moderate, otherwise, with abundant watering at a high temperature, the wayas will continue to grow (especially if the soil is very nutritious), but due to lack of light, the distance between the openwork segments of the leaves will be too large, and the segments themselves will be small.
Ferns do not tolerate dry air, all types of nephrolepis love frequent spraying with warm water during the heating season. Due to the dryness of the air, the ends of the nephrolepis leaves dry and break off. You can hang wet towels on batteries, or fill the pallet with raw sphagnum moss, put the plant on a tray - a cat's toilet filled to lattice level with water, etc. If the apartment is warm in winter (about 25 degrees and above), then the humidity is low. The lower the temperature in the room, the more humidity. It is cooler on the windowsill, but for most species, as already mentioned, there is not enough volume.
Almost all ferns grown at home are heat-loving, the optimal temperature for them is 15-22 degrees, but they will withstand a short drop in temperature to + 5, unless they have previously been well watered.
Ferns need nutritious soil. In garden land or purchased substrate, you need to add sheet humus and approximately 1/10 part of the rotted manure, then top dressing will not be needed for one and a half to two years, and after this period, you can transfer to a container of a larger diameter. If the plant has grown too much, then during transplantation it is necessary to separate part of the roots with the wai growing from them, and fill the vacant space in the pot with humus. Then the plant can be left in the same container .
After division, nephrolepis can hurt for some time: the leaves lose their color, some of them dry to avoid this, only young shoots need to be separated, trying not to damage the root lump of the uterine plant, in other words, to separate what is easily separated. Roots are not cut during transplantation, only old and rotten ones can be removed.
The pot must be chosen high (height more than diameter), in order to put drainage on the bottom, and leave enough space for watering at the top. When planting in a new pot, the roots must be straightened, buried no more than the level that was originally. Almost all ferns do not require large container sizes. So in a pot with a volume of 5 liters, nephrolepis with long fronds grows perfectly, the green mass of which is sometimes greater than that of a tuberous plant.
Ferns are fertilized with liquid fertilizers, reducing the dose by half compared to the recommended on the label, less often than other plants (once or twice a month, depending on the time elapsed after transplantation). Feeding period: from May to September.
As the fern ages, its appearance deteriorates due to the fact that a large number of petioles from dead leaves stick out above the root neck. They can be carefully removed with small scissors, while trying not to damage the brittle petioles of healthy leaves.
Care for Nephrolepis - in the Encyclopedia of indoor plants.
Of all the pests of indoor plants, the defeat of nephrolepises by scutes can be distinguished. Their appearance is not immediately noticed, but only after the openwork feathers of the leaf begin to dry out and crumble en masse, exposing its core. Vaya loses all her decorativeness. Scutes settle, as a rule, along the leaf rod at the base of leaf blades, a person who is not sophisticated takes them for natural tubercles-growths, confuse them with spores (sporangia are located on the back of the leaf blade in symmetrical rows).
The affected leaves must be removed along with the petiole by cutting them off at the very root. On those leaves where there are no dried and crumbling feathers, it is necessary to conduct a thorough inspection and remove the shields, scraping them from the base of the leaves, then treat the entire plant with Aktelic. The drug has a 2nd hazard class, it is better not to use them indoors, especially if you have children, old people or not very healthy family members in the house. The respirator prevents only small droplets from entering the respiratory tract, but does not protect against toxic fumes. Other drugs will not help.
Thus, the conclusion suggests itself: it is better to prevent infection with shields than to fight them. The pest can be brought home on a plant bought in a store brought from a friend, so the "newcomer" must be quarantined and then thoroughly examined. Other pests for ferns are less dangerous and easier to control. Bacterial and fungal diseases will not occur if suitable conditions for nephrolepis are provided.
There is a myth that ferns supposedly purify the air of poisonous impurities. This is not true, on the contrary, they do not tolerate polluted air well. The truth is that a large biomass of the plant absorbs carbon dioxide well in the daytime, while releasing oxygen, it is easier for a person to breathe in such a room. Therefore, you need to place ferns not in the bedroom, but in the kitchen or in the living room.
Davallia davallia
The openwork leaves of this fern look very tender, but at the same time very elastic, not brittle (even when dropped). The leaves, like all ferns, grow directly from the roots and are up to 30 centimeters long, so davallia is a fairly compact plant.
In indoor conditions, this is a very unpretentious plant, unlike other species of davallia ferns, it is easier to put up with dry air, it belongs to shade-tolerant plants, does not tolerate direct sunlight, but can live where other plants are too dry and dark.
Davallia is an epiphytic fern, in natural conditions it feeds on the products of decay of bark and wood, so the substrate for it should be the same as for other epiphytic plants (orchids, for example). To independently prepare the substrate, you need to take as a basis the riding coarse-fiber peat - the 2 part, add a small amount of light sod earth, deciduous humus, crushed bark, finely cut moss-sphagnum and one part of coarse-grained river sand.
These ferns are planted in low but wide pots, in hanging vases, baskets lined with moss from the inside, containers in the form of a wide cup on a leg. Davallia will look very beautiful in a composition with a beautiful root. Options are possible: the plate with the plant is strengthened on a beautiful writhing root; in a small snag, a depression is hollowed out where the plant is planted; the soil is placed in a wide container and a small root is buried in it and davallia is planted. In any case, the low capacity will hardly be visible under the hanging shaggy root legs and leaves.
Davallia cannot tolerate waterlogging, there should be no water in the pallet, dampness leads to rot of the roots. It is desirable that the earthen lump is constantly only slightly wet, when re-drying, the leaves turn yellow and fall off the roots, while the dried leaves do not crumble, as, for example, in nephrolepises, under the pots with which garbage constantly accumulates. After drying, it is necessary to remove dead leaves from davallia, slowly soak the earthen lump with warm settled water, and it will quickly recover from stress. Permanent spraying is not required.
Care for Davallia - in the Encyclopedia of Houseplants section.
Davallia is propagated by division during transplantation, what is easily separated is separated. You can simply separate one "foot" with a pair of leaves on it, put it on a damp substrate covered with wet moss, pin it with a stud made from a coated paper clip, and maintain this humidity until there is a new increase.
The first transplant will not need a long time. The plant does not grow upward, but grows in width. When there is practically no land left in the pot, the crush is transplanted into a larger pot. Like other epiphytic plants (living, but not parasitizing on other plants), davallia roots do not separate well from the walls of the pot, they seem to stick to the walls, the ceramic container may be better broken to separate the plant without damaging it.
Put a layer of expanded clay on the bottom of a container of a larger diameter, cover it with a layer of soil about 5 cm, put an old pot or an empty pot similar to the old one in shape and size on it, fill the gap between the pots with an earthen mixture, slightly compress, take out an empty pot, and place a root ball of davallia in its place .
It is important not to bury the plant above the initial level, all shaggy "legs" should remain on top, but it is advisable to pour fresh soil under them in order to tamper with it, you need to use a wooden stick with a flat end with a diameter slightly thicker than a pencil. Roots that previously hung over the edge of the pot must be straightened in a horizontal plane and carefully placed on top of fresh soil.
Davallia consumes nutrients very economically, so it does not require frequent transplants and feeding, this is also its charm, since many deciduous houseplants quickly overgrow, lose decorativeness, and require transplantation into larger and larger containers. Davallya can be transplanted and forget about it for several years! Naturally, we must not forget only about watering. Of course - this is a plant for heavily employed lovers of indoor plants. It looks very good, like a single specimen, like an ampel plant, a plant in a group, in composition with other plants.
Adiantum Adiantum
Adiantum is one of the most beautiful indoor plants. This fern has very delicate leaves with thin dark petioles similar to a wire and leaf blade segments with rounded edges. Among several varieties of adianthums, the most beautiful is Tenerum Farleyense, the most common is Capillus Veneris (Venus Hair). There are variegated varieties with yellow-green and orange-red colors of cirrus-dissected leaves.
Adianthums belong to plants of moderately warm rooms, i.e. the temperature range acceptable for them is from 12 to 25 degrees (ideal if the temperature ranges from 15 to 20 degrees). During extreme summer heat, it is better to remove the plant from the windowsill, because this is the hottest place in the room, even if the window is north. Coolest place on the floor. Direct sunlight is contraindicated in adianthum, like all ferns.
The plant does not tolerate overdrying at all. They forgot to water it in time, and in just a couple of days all the leaves will turn yellow, and then they will begin to dry. There may not be a single living leaf left in the pot, but do not rush to throw the plant away. It is necessary to cut off all dried or yellowed leaves, lower the pot into a vessel with warm settled water, so that the water level reaches the ground level in the pot, when the water is well saturated with an earthen substrate, the plant is removed, the excess water is allowed to drain and put on a dry pallet .
In a few days (depending on the temperature) the first green curls will appear, and over time the adiantum will fully recover and become a curly handsome again. That's the beauty of this plant - just a phoenix bird! Adiantum loves regular watering, but at the same time, like most plants, it suffers greatly from excess moisture and begins to get sick. Especially excessive moisture in the pot is dangerous when the apartment is too cold or too hot.
Care for Adiantum - in the Encyclopedia of Houseplants section.
So that the roots of the plant do not rot, be sure to make a drainage of expanded clay at the bottom of the pot, water must be poured slowly, in portions until its excess appears in the tray. If after 20-30 minutes the water from the tray was not absorbed again into the pot, then it must be drained. How to make sure that there was enough water during watering (it could simply flow down the walls without soaking with an earthen lump)? This is easy to do if you raise and evaluate the weight of the pot before watering and after it, after watering the pot should be significantly heavier.
When the plant is healthy, the soil dries up quite quickly and has to be watered often. As soon as the adiantum begins to lack moisture, its beautiful leaves become dull, in which case it is better to water by immersing the pot with the plant in warm water, as mentioned earlier, otherwise it is difficult to wet the soil in the pot, which is typical for almost all ferns. Watering should be reduced as daylight hours decrease. With a lack of light, the leaves of the adiantum stretch and their fan-shaped segments grind, which leads to a loss of decorativeness.
Adianthums do not tolerate spraying, although they do not like the dry air of rooms with central heating, so you need to make sure that the jets of hot air rising from the battery do not fall on the leaves. If the plant is affected by fungal or bacterial diseases, then treatment by spraying it with the appropriate chemicals will only worsen the situation. In this case, you need to remove all the affected parts of the plant, transplant into fresh soil, burying several pieces of charcoal or activated carbon tablets from the pharmacy into it. Chemicals can only be used when watering. For the same reason, pest infestation of adianthum must be avoided. The formation of black tubercles along the edge of the leaf blade of a mature leaf is not a disease or a pest, these are spores characteristic of all ferns.
They breed adiantum by dividing old bushes. The soil can be used ordinary, the same as for other ornamental plants. When transplanting, it is not necessary to bury the adiantum, more than the initial ground level. Feeding can be carried out only a year after transplantation, the adiantum does not tolerate excess nitrogen well. From May to September, you can feed with liquid fertilizer 1 once a month, in doses of half of the norm indicated on the label.
Author Rusinova Tatyana Alexandrovna
About ferns on the site Ferns