Same to you, Xuan! ;) And thanks, Al, for the great soil mix! This morning, the overnight freeze had the fronds looking limp, but they sprang back by midday. Eventually, all of these fronds will yellow and die-back...just in time for next year's growth. I'm in the process of putting together one of these "barrels" with a Chainfern for my brother. Josh

Hi Andrew and Diana, Andrew, I should stop buying plants too, but I just can't seem to! LOL The thing about the Jungle Jack plants at our various Lowe's is that until yesterday, I had only ever seen for sale the 3 varieties that I mentioned at the top of this post. To see 'Elsie' AND 'Inca Gold' on that table was just too much--my wallet practically flew out of my pocket by itself. Diana: unfortunately, no writing on the trunk. These plants are identified by the small white tab stuck in the soil, like the one in my pic. Because JJ's potting medium is so loose and the plants get shuffled around so much, I think many of the ID tabs simply fall out. As a matter of fact, at one of the Lowe's I visited, the dozen plants for sale there had been moved inside after obviously having been devastated by whiteflies; adding insult to injury, many of the plants looked as though they'd been toppled and sloppily re-potted--at least half of those plants were missing the ID tab. I bought one of these plants, not more than 15 inches tall with a whopping 6 tips--and it has an inflo, so we'll find out what it is yet this season. I'll post a pic of 'Mystery JJ Plumie #2" in this thread soon. I believe you're a friend of John's, so you would know better than me, but I would tend to think that John would not send out noIDs to the FL wholesaler. Perhaps if irun from St. Pete reads this thread, irun can tell me the name of the wholesaler--no one at my store could tell me. At any rate, it's all for fun. I will be sure to post pics of all the new plants when they bloom--hopefully the flower will make the mystery plants' identities obvious! In the meantime: JJ plant w/ slender, upright growth habit, and pointed (not rounded) leaves? Anyone...anyone?? I'll entertain guesses!

I live about as far away from you as possible so my advice may mean nothing - to me it sounds like they are in shock. It could be stronger winds then they have ever experienced before, stronger sunlight or something about the weather that they are not used to dealing with (like salt spray). With mine, I water the trunk every day. I mean I spray the trunks of all the tree ferns more than I ever water the soil in the pots they are growing in. They get most of the soil moisture from rain but the wind can dry out the trunks which seem to prefer being moist all the time. Whenever I repot mine I cut off all but one or two fronds to help it adjust to the new soil and any damage done to the roots while being repotted. I've had mine for many years and the tallest one is over 6 feet tall. I don't really baby them, but I keep them moist, water the trunks and try to keep them out of the wind.

I planted a few ferns, but they keep getting overgrown by the Hosta. I also inherited some Ostrich fern which duke it out with the maple tree roots. I don't take pics of them, because they're not Hosta. Although, that pic of the maidenhair fern makes me wonder. I found a pic of my Autumn fern in August as the colors are just beginning to change (I cropped it out of a Hosta pic)