A few months ago I got this from Amazon. It really is impressive what you can get for $25. It really is 2 ft horizontally and vertical.
I basically killed it. A lot of leaves turned brown and fell off and it was very scraggly. Maybe I could have brought it back with better watering and fertilizer but I just decided to order another one.
The instructions I have found about watering are rather vague. First it depends on the humidity in the room. I would say here it is moderate. It gets no direct sunlight. Then they say that the soil should be moist, but not soaking. Does that mean moist at the very top, or 3-4 inches down? The pot, it’s in a hanging basket, is 8 inches tall.
I would that for the first plant I was giving it about 8 ounces 3 times a week. I think that was too much. It’s been almost exactly a week since I got it and I’ve only watered once, about 4 ounces, and it looks great.
If that is all the water it needs that would be great. I have a money tree and I only water it a couple of times a week and its growing, new branches all the time.
Low maintenance is the key for me and plants. Who was it that said “I hate writing but love having written”? I love having beautiful greenery around me, but hate gardening.
Instead of “watering” it, try getting a quart sprayer and get it the moisture it needs with it. Its a more natural way of watering the fern and it should respond nicely. Also use filtered, not tap, water with a few drips of liquid seaweed fertilizer in the sprayer.
I’ve learned as far as ferns go, less is more. They don’t need to be in constantly wet soil to thrive. As already mentioned, a spray bottle is the key. The best luck I’ve had with ferns was in a sealed terrarium on a window sill. I had a bowl of water in there too. It got warm and moist and soon I ended up with way too many ferns.
Shit, I dunno if commanding a misting every single damn day is necessary. Ferns aren’t super low maintenance, but that seems a bit much unless you live in the desert.
Keep a spray bottle right by it, spritz the fern whenever you walk by and remember it. Good mindless task when you’re on hold on the phone.
But a whole big cup (8 oz) three times a week is waaahhhhaaaayy too much water. The roots can’t sit saturated or else they can’t “breathe” and will rot. Half that, once a week, is probably fine.
Many years go I also had a Boston Fern in hanging basket.
Must have killed at least 4 before I gave up and bought a plastic one.
These days with plastic you can’t tell the difference and it only needed a spray down with the shower hose in the bath once a year to get rid of the dust and bring it back to “life”
Misting is fine, but it’s not a replacement for watering the soil. They want 50%+ humidity which is unrealistic in the winter, and still not the best idea in the summer either. Also, misting is very temporary, maybe 30-60 minutes of increased humidity per day by the time it’s evaporated. It’s better to run a humidifier to get the humidity up to around 40% if possible, and better yet have the plant on a bed of moist pebbles. Not easy in a hanging basket I know, so misting would be the only real option there. You want the finest spray possible for something like that and then just two or three spritzes. The point isn’t to wet the leaves so much as to atomize the water into the air.
Ferns do like getting showers too, which helps clean the leaves of dust and wash off any pests. I think Boston ferns are susceptible to spider mites (my nemesis), which thrive in dry environments and live underneath the leaves. So a monthly or bi-weekly wash from the garden hose, spraying as much from the bottom up, will help clear those buggers out. That’s also a good time to flush out the soil, getting rid of some of the built-up minerals.
If the leaves turned yellow before turning brown and falling off, then it was probably too wet. If they just went straight to brown, then it’s more likely to be humidity. Make sure it’s not near a radiator or heating vent. Since ferns don’t like to dry out, more frequent waterings are best (two times a week is probably plenty). The key to “moist but not soaked” is to water when the top of the soil is dry, but allow any excess to drain through. For a pot in a saucer, you’d want just a trickle of water coming out the bottom, but no more. If you watered too much, then just dump the saucer. If you have a self-watering pot with no hole in the bottom, then it’s tougher to know. But if it’s always water logged underneath then the roots will suffocate and rot. That’s when the leaves go yellow before dying.
Sounds flip but there’s no hard and fast answer. It depends on how warm the room is, light intensity, humidity and most importantly the type of soil (fast-draining? tendency to hold lots of water and get soggy?) and how much of the pot is occupied by roots (when pot-bound or close to it, plants require more frequent watering).
“Moist” means the level of soil moisture at the root ball, something you can estimate by sticking your finger in the soil and seeing what it feels like a few inches down. I’m not a Boston fern expert, but if the soil is halfway decent and drains adequately, I’d water it well, only when the soil surface has dried out. Small amounts of water may not reach the root ball.
been misting for a week and I watered on Monday. Seeing a few brown leaves. The pot does seem to weigh much less than when I got it. What if I were to slowly add water until it starts to drip from the holes in the bottom and then left it alone for a week? Except for misting.
