What would be a good organic oil to have as a favorite? Neem oil is a very popular organic oil used in horticulture pest control. Since I'm new to "organic"..., I don't know about "anti-organic." So, please fill me in. Obviously, I have a lot to learn. The idea with organic gardening is to feed the good microbes and provide them a good environment. Then they will keep everything in balance to feed the plants and protect them from sucking insects and disease. Killing them with alcohol is the opposite idea. Alcohol is an antiseptic. That means it kills "germs." Germs is a poorly used word meaning bacteria with no regard to whether the bacteria are beneficial or disease causing (pathogens). Beneficial bacteria far outnumber the pathogens but sometimes the balance between the good and bad gets out of whack allowing disease and pests to take over temporarily. When you use an antiseptic you are killing all the bacteria whether beneficial or not. Then after the beneficial bacteria disappear, the disease causing bacteria often grow back faster than the beneficial ones. This is called disease, and instead of be prevented by the alcohol, it was caused by it.

To begin I would recommend that you try to grow it in a clay pot. You should use a gritty soil, not cactus mix as that has sphagnum in it (or at least the ones I checked out did). Something like a small grade of granitic gravel. What I generally do is find a bag of this type of gravel from a home improvement center as it is used in making concrete. Then sieve it down to get the finer gravel. Put coarser gravel in the bottom of the pot. While I think it will do well with just gravel you may want to add some soil to it. Unfortunately the only stuff I would even consider is African violet planting mix and that again has sphagnum in it. If you use something like this then 1 part soil to 2 or 3 parts gravel. Instead of the soil mix perhaps some humus might be ok. I think that this fern should handle the house environment ok but you may want to spray it during the fall into spring when you will want it to be green. As summer approaches let it dry back. No water at all. Because it is a southern variety you may want to keep the pot outside in shade for the humidity. But hold off on the water. If the plant is established by the time the summer comes it should make it through ok and maybe even if it is not. As it often grows in trees in the south it occurs where the rainfall is heavy and frequent. During the growing period you can safely water it daily in the gravel mix though 2-3 times weekly is suitable. I have tried to grow this species in my greenhouse but the plant I got had brown scale and I did not even realize it until it was too late!!! So be sure to inspect any plant you get!! I was totally blown away as I did not even think that brown scale would infect this kind of fern. My basic experience with Polypodium is with the native California species, Polypodium californicum. This plant is amazing as I have a piece of it sitting in a pot that I laid on the side and sat it on my roof with the face of the pot facing north. I hardly ever water it yet when the rains come the fern pops out and reminds me just how tough it really is!! Good luck.

Finally something in my area of expertise that I can answer....because I can tell you everything that didn't work for me, for both scale and aphids. 1. Weekly doses of neem oil did nothing. 2. Insecticidal soap did nothing. 3. Horticultural oil did nothing. 4. I'm in an apartment with no outdoor access, so could only shower them in the shower...which also did nothing. Finally, out of sheer desperation, I released hundreds of ladybugs onto the plants (yes, into an apartment). The aphids were obliterated, but the ladybugs made friends with the scale and now they hang out on the branches together. I guess they must be eating some of them but the scale reproduce faster than the ladybugs can eat. To help them out I take cotton balls with rubbing alcohol and swab the leavee, particularly the bad areas. This helps a lot and if I do 10-15 leaves a day (the ones where the ladybugs aren't hanging out), I can keep the sticky stuff to a minimum, but it's a constant battle. I haven't found anything that obliterated them, no matter how many times I sprayed, but I like the ladybugs best. I was going to get a couple more citrus but don't think I could keep up with all the swabbing.

in the day ... all of my houseplants that went outdoors for summer .. were treated with a systemic product about a month before they were scheduled to come back into the house ... i dont recall the product and you would have to do your own research .... perhaps start at a high end nursery ... there used to be phone numbers on product labels.. wherein you could call the manufacturer for info about whether the product could be used on a given plant ... no need for me to repeat that which is at the link https://www.bayeradvanced.com/find-a-product/insects-pests/natria-insect-disease-mite-control ken