Asparagus Fern help
Comments (26)
tapla (mid-Michigan, USDA z5b-6a)
11 years ago
SarahofLayton
11 years agoRelated Discussions
Looks like an Asparagus fern
Comments (1)Looks like an Asparagus retrofractus, Ming Fern. Billy Rae...See MoreAsparagus Fern HELP
Comments (8)ehh...i kinda killed it by accident on purpose. I know its sad...im actually really good with plants i have over 20 ranging from cacti and succulents to carnivorous plants.. For some reason i stopped liking it so i put it out in FULL summer sun. I tried giving it away..but no one would take it. Now that im writing this..i sound like a horrible plant owner LOL...See MoreHelp! Asparagus Ferns making me nuts!
Comments (7)Shrubs ID'd as Pittosporum. The small spot of a-fern in the first pic here looks easy to dig up. The other spot pictured in the other discussion probably has a lot of roots from the palm, hopefully but unfortunately. I might smother all of that instead of trying to dig, even if I wasn't concerned about slicing up a bunch of roots of my palm tree. It looks like adding anything would raise the level above the bricks. Not a visual problem, IMO, but the runoff from the bed area could stain the bricks, and even move the mulch onto the bricks in a heavy downpour. It looks like hopefully the rain would flow from brick into bed? If so, this is what I would do. Get large pieces of cardboard with no tape, staples (but easy to remove if it has these,) or glue, which usually needs to be cut off. Cover the a-ferns completely, and about a foot out of their area, overlapping well so it can't get through, on all sides that aren't brick or grass. Then cover with enough mulch to cover it and hold it in place. If you weed-wack the a-ferns first, it will be easier for the cardboard to lay flush with the soil surface. After it's covered with mulch, moisten it lightly, then walk all over it, to eliminate any space the a-ferns could use to keep growing. They now have no space or light. As long as this smother isn't disturbed until they are dead, and nothing escapes through a rip, crack, or edge, that should be the end of the a-ferns. I would do this ASAP, before berries show up, then not disturb until after uncovering a small test plot next year. If you have access to some more of the same bricks, I might consider adding one more brick-high around the edge of the bed. Keeping a few inches of mulch saves a lot of hassle with quantities of weeds, as well as keeping landscape from dying in times of less rain. But you don't want to have to sweep it back in bounds constantly, or stain the bricks....See MoreThat horrible spiky asparagus fern
Comments (12)Hi there Jan and all the other gardeners having had experience with asparagus plumosis. Did you all get rid of that invasive plant? The garden of my daughter is full of it, it spreads via long running roots, it suffocates any plant on which it finds support, my skin it torn and cut by these sharp ...thorns (?). I am trying to get rid of that stuff by cutting it down and pulling up the roots. Bags and bags full of it. when does it end? I have no idea how it got into this garden. Took me quite some time to find out its name. Although it did not grow in Europe, back in the fifties I hated that stuff already, when the florist insistently added one or two sprigs to a bunch of flowers, such as roses or carnations. They have no idea what it means to have that stuff in the garden!...See Morebirdsnblooms
11 years ago
Tiffany, purpleinopp Z8b Opp, AL
11 years agoplantomaniac08
11 years agoIf I have the same asparagus fern as Sarah is referring to, the flowers form up and down the "fronds" (for a lack of better words). Not my photo by the way, taken from someone's blog, but just wanted to show a picture of how the flowers form.
Planto
Tiffany, purpleinopp Z8b Opp, AL
11 years agoSarahofLayton
11 years agoTiffany, purpleinopp Z8b Opp, AL
11 years agoSarahofLayton
11 years agobirdsnblooms
11 years agotapla (mid-Michigan, USDA z5b-6a)
11 years agoIt's indeed A. plumosa. They often shoot out long branches/stems very quickly, which later start to sprout foliage, which is what is shown in the picture. I use this plant regularly in many mixed plantings outdoors, and have grown it indoors in a dish planting along with China Doll. It's a pretty durable plant, as long as you don't over-water/fertilize or let the salt level get too high in the soil.
If you want to shorten the stem, do it now, before the plant spends energy on producing foliage you'll later cut off. Shorten stems by pruning immediately above a new leaf node. It likes a fast draining soil you can water copiously w/o having to worry that you've over-watered, and they respond very well to soluble fertilizers in the 3:1:2 RATIO at low, frequent doses.
The picture shows a planting ready for a hard pruning. Ask, if you want the 'after' picture.
Al
birdsnblooms
11 years agoSarahofLayton
11 years agotropicbreezent
11 years agoplantomaniac08
11 years agoeahamel
11 years agobirdsnblooms
11 years agoplantomaniac08
11 years agotapla (mid-Michigan, USDA z5b-6a)
11 years agoThe plant in the picture I posted above is in a dish garden with no drain holes in it. I grew it for 4 years in the same container, watering it with distilled water or snowmelt, before I split up the planting and sent the ferns to GW members because I was bored with it. Occasionally an entire branch/stem would die due to natural senescence, and I would remove it, but basically the plant was perfectly healthy sitting on the kitchen table (which we never use). They are quite tolerant of chill and dry air, but don't particularly like wet feet. I fertilized this plant only with fish emulsion because I was unable to flush the soil due to the lack of drain holes, but others I've grown responded perfectly to FP 9-3-6.
You'll note that, after pruning, some of the leaves on the China Doll have dead tips, but keep in mind that these leaves are the oldest leaves on the tree and were extremely shaded by the mass of foliage you can see in the picture upthread. The tree was already harvesting what it could from the leaves in preparation for their being shed. Anyway - the post is more about the A plumosa than the China Doll.
Al
birdsnblooms
11 years agotapla (mid-Michigan, USDA z5b-6a)
11 years agoThis is a planting that I made during a bonsai workshop. We had a guest artist, and the plants she brought were really limited in variety and unsuited to either bonsai or saikei (planted landscapes). I'm pretty sure she just picked up a bunch of 3-4" pots at a big box store & separated the plants in them. I couldn't 'sit out' the workshop, so I had to plant 'something'. This is what I ended up with, and it never really interested me beyond confirming to myself that I could keep these plants healthy indoors, and that I had already posted one reduction and figured it would be interesting for you guys to see how the plant responded. This is the second major reduction the planting underwent.
No root pruning on these because roots still had room in the tray. The picture was taken in early May, before the hornbeam I was layering the top off of leafed out, so oven though the plant had been putting on growth (overgrowth) the plant was about ready to start growing in earnest. I think the main reason I kept the plant around was because I had previously posted a picture of a reduction very similar to this one. All that foliage you see upthread occurred in the year subsequent to that first reduction. I really had no hopes that the planting would ever really look attractive, but I kept it because I thought I might find it useful here on the forum. I finally got rid of it after I had a few shots fired over my bow on the home front. I cant remember who I sent the ferns to - someone on this forum. I think I just tossed the China Dolls.
This is what the planting above looked like 3 months later:
Al
plantastic
11 years agotropicbreezent
6 years ago
Laurie (8A)
6 years agotropicbreezent
6 years ago
Laurie (8A)