Potting Birds Nest Fern + How to Grow

Hey, what's up, gardening friends? Jeff here at Tropical Plant Party. How's everybody doing? Hope you're good. I'm great. Sitting by the fan trying to stay cool. Still doing that whole doctor's orders thing. Not breaking a sweat. It's a pretty beautiful day though. It's kind of warm. I can turn this down. That might be a little bit annoying. I'll bring it down a little bit. I am repotting some plants. It's in the title of the video. I'm sure you know what's going on. I need to repot my bird's nest fern, which is over here. See, I already have it just kind of hanging out in this hanging basket, but it's not actually potted in there yet. So what I've done is I have mixed up a mix that is going to work well for how I prefer to grow these ferns, and that's basically a nice organically rich potting mix. It has a good amount of compost in it. There's a whole bunch of chunky bark in here to help keep things nice and aerated, along with some pumice. There's also perlite. I like the pumice over the perlite. I use both just because I only had a little bit of each, but the reason I like pumice in these types of mixes is that when you have to soak the plant heavily, like say when I have this indoors in the winter time, if it gets too dry, then I can give it a good soak. By good soak, I mean actually like taking the plant, submerging it in water for just, you know, like 15 minutes or so to fully saturate the soil. With perlite, well, it's basically, you know, it's like styrofoam, and it's going to float up when you do that. The nice thing about pumice over perlite is that when you give them a really heavy drink like that, is that the pumice doesn't tend to float up quite as much as perlite does. So I kind of like to use both. Lava rock also works really well. I just, I don't have any, but ultimately the main thing I look for when repotting a bird's nest fern, or just potting up any bird's nest fern, since they are epiphytes, want to make sure that it's something that will hold on to some moisture. These come from areas where there's very moist and it is very humid, but it also needs to drain well because they don't like wet feet. They're wet roots. They don't want water sitting in the bottom of their container, which is also why I removed, there was a little drainage cup that was on there. It's over here right now. This, this was attached to the bottom. I pulled that off because I don't want anything on there that's going to hold water. You can see this fern's looking a little bit ratty. I have somebody else taking care of my plants for me right now while I have some other things going on, and that's okay. You know, plants aren't perfect. You get brown spots and things like that sometimes. It just happens. It's okay. These little leaves down here, those should just pop right off like that, and then anything that's undesirable, that can also be cut and just trimmed off. So to get this started, I'm going to go ahead, just to make it a little bit easier, I'm just going to pop the clips off of here. I prefer to use a hanging basket for a variety of reasons. I'll explain why in just a moment. Before I get going into this, though, I also want to examine the roots of the plant. Looks okay. There is a lot of sphagum in here, which I don't think is necessary for this plant, not with the way that I grow them. If you live someplace where you have really dry air and you know you're going to have a struggle keeping the plant hydrated well, then some sphagum is not a terrible idea, but it's really important with these ferns, with bird's nest ferns, to make sure that not too much moisture collects right around the crown of the plant, particularly actually in the center of the plant. So if there's some sphagum down in the potting mix down in here, not a big deal, but I really wasn't crazy about having all of that up here that close just because they're outside this time of year, and you know, I can't control the weather. They'll be hanging under the trees. I say they because I have another one that I'm going to repot in a separate video. They'll have some protection from the moisture, but for the most part, I want to make sure most of that's out of there. But otherwise, everything else I'm seeing down here, it looks okay. There's no foul odors or anything like that. So I'm going to go ahead and say that this plant's doing just fine as far as its root health goes. Always nice when you're repotting your plants and you don't end up having to like spray them down with peroxide and stuff like that, you know, when you see snails or there's like a stench. I'm going to pot this up so that it is just a smidge higher than the edge of the pot there. This is a pretty large container for this fern. It's not going to need to be repotted for a pretty long time after this. I'd say it'll be good in here for at least, I'd say a minimum of two to three years, but I will have to keep an eye on how the soil's breaking down. Anytime you're working with a soil mix that has a lot of organic material in it, it can break down more quickly and then kind of it'll compact and sort of turn into a mud and you lose some of the good drainage that these plants need. So that's something that I will have to pay attention to. Those are things you should pay attention to with all of our plants really. So I think I already mentioned, I'm going to put this up a little bit higher than I normally would so that I don't have to worry as much about water collecting around the crown of the plant so it'll have some air movement around it because, like I mentioned, I have somebody else caring for my plants as far as watering them and everything goes right now. There's just so many plants out here that it just seems a little bit unreasonable to expect the people who are helping me, who don't know much of anything about plants, to also remember like the specifics for each one. It's like with the birds nest fern to make sure that they don't get water into the center of the plant and those sorts of things. Just to be safe, I'm going to have it raised up a little bit higher than I normally would. Come in and just lightly pack that down. It does need to be a somewhat airy mix because they are epiphytes. They're not going to want their soil to be compacted. I don't really have the ratios of how I did this blend, I'm sorry. I just kind of usually eyeball these things. The main thing is that when I held it together, I wanted it to fall apart fairly easily and I also made sure to use a composty soil as the base, one that that holds on to some moisture. People have all kinds of recipes and things they use for potting up the birds nest ferns. It's one of the great things about this plant is that they're pretty simple to grow. They don't have to be complicated at all but I tend to kind of overcomplicate it a little bit just because I think they grow better. I'm going to go in and trim out some of the brown foliage just, you know, so things look a little bit more clean and tidy. I'm not going to take out too much but anything that's already dying off, kind of like this piece right here and there's a few more down low, those can go. They don't need to stay there and I should mention I did sterilize these before using them for this. I just rubbed them down with some rubbing alcohol and let them sit for a few minutes and as far as the rest of the blemishes and things that are on the foliage here, I'm not really concerned about it. Certainly things to pay attention to but nothing I'm seeing here is characteristic of a problem other than probably some things that weren't quite right with the humidity and sun exposure because this is this is a variegated birds nest fern. Birds nest ferns don't like direct sunlight period let alone a variegated one and it got like, I don't know, maybe half an hour of bright light this morning and that's all it takes to kind of crisp things up. So this is going into the deep deep shade. Now the last thing I'm going to do, this is where things get a little bit extra. I'm putting a layer of pumice down on the top. This is hydrostone, it's a pumicey material and the reason that I'm doing this is because I have a slug problem when it comes to any of my plants that I make sure get misted or sprayed daily. Lots of slugs out here. This pumice material, it's abrasive and slugs and snails tend to not like it. By no means a cure-all or a magic fix to getting rid of the slugs and snails. The pumice, it's nifty, it's not a hundred percent, it doesn't always work but it can just help. Like have you ever seen like the nature documentaries or the aquarium shows how they put what is it called the um astroturf on the sides of octopus aquariums? The cephalopods, they can feel it, they don't like the way it feels. Sort of the same principle here except that this also has that dusty abrasive material that comes off of it that shreds their exoskeletons and potentially will kill them. Kind of mean and gruesome, I know, but it's going to protect the fern. That's also why I decided to put this in a hanging basket because by having it hanging up I can sort of have it out of the slug zone. So I'll have this hanging from the trees in the deep deep shade where they will just get dappled light, nothing direct, and I will hang them with a piece of fishing line just because that will also help keep the slugs from being able to travel down the string onto the plant. Where there's a will, there's a way. Like I don't think I'm going to be able to a hundred percent slug proof these plants but I think that this is probably the best way to do things this year since I'm having to garden a little bit differently than I'm used to. Since like I said there's other people taking care of plants so I'm trying to sort of I guess you could say like be like defensive gardening. Essentially if slugs or snails are able to get up the sides of the pot or down the hanger I want them to hit that pumice and go ouch I don't like that and turn around and go away which is also a good reason to have put pumice in the bottom of the pot which I completely forgot to do. Oops! That's okay it's going to be hanging in the tree so I'm not really that concerned about the slugs and snails but just to be safe I wanted to make sure I had that layer there. Again this is kind of going above and beyond and being a little bit extra because like I said other people are caring for my plants right now more than I am because basically the people who are caring for my plants know to give them water and that that's pretty much as far as their plant knowledge goes so with as many plants as I have in my garden I don't want them to have to memorize like which plants make sure to keep the water out of the centers of and everything like that this way I don't really have to worry about that as much. I will have it hanging up in the trees back like up in there somewhere again I'll use some clear fishing line just because I feel like that would be harder for slugs and snails to travel along so I'm sure they can pull it off they're pretty tenacious critters right if they want to get to the plant they will but I think that there's going to be a lot of other plants that'll be more of a distraction to them. Didn't add any slow release fertilizer into that potting mix they really don't need that they're sensitive when it comes to fertilizer whenever I fertilize a bird's nest fern during the growing season I do it probably every other week to once a month this year I may not do it at all because I'm not again I have other people taking care of my plants for me this year but I would do about a quarter to a half strength diluted all-purpose fertilizer they like the seaweed fertilizers too those work well there's a lot of really nice organic material in that potting mix so I really shouldn't need much fertilizer this year anyways but in the future maybe that organic material even though these are epiphytes and don't necessarily feed from their roots the roots are more for anchoring the plant to trees and stuff like that but it still has breakdown bacteria and fungus break down that organic material and it still releases nitrogen which the plants still feed off of whether it's through the roots or through the foliage so I'm not too concerned about the fertilizing aspect this year but next year I'll be probably more stringent and on top of it the potting mix that I use for this is pretty much what I've always used for bird's nest ferns it's pretty similar to what I also use for like epiphyllum cactus any sort of tropical epiphyte that grows someplace with a lot of moisture that's a decent blend like I said I wish I had the ratios but most people for a bird's nest fern usually will use like a peat-based potting mix that's blended with roughly anywhere from 30 to 50 percent perlite pumice something like that so it drains freely but still holds on to some moisture it just shouldn't stay wet and it shouldn't really go dry but they're tough plants and my philosophy with pretty much all plants is that I would rather have to water them often than have a soil that holds on to so much moisture that it gets stanky and nasty and then you have to deal with root rot and then the plant dying it's so much easier to rehydrate a plant than to have to bring something back from rot or decay and since I have these outside part of the year it really does need to drain well that's really important because it rains a bunch here it's pretty humid I don't worry as much about water collecting in the center of the plants outdoors as I do indoors because there's more airflow out here so it's not really a big concern but it's still something to pay attention to again this is also why I'm putting it in a hanging basket because I think that not only for the slugs and snails that will be helpful I think for the people who are watering it it'll be more easy for them to make sure to just water the soil as opposed to splashing water all over the entire plant but again I'm outdoors there's airflow should be fine. Bird's nest ferns are really pretty tough plants there are a lot of different ways to grow them and that's a really good indicator of a really tough plant right main problems people usually run into with bird's nest ferns is usually due to dry air dry soil or too much water that's those are generally like the main problems and then too much light they will scorch with too much light and um but too little light's not usually that big of an issue they'll like just hang out and chill even in pretty low light conditions because they like shade if you think about where these grow they grow up in the canopy up in the trees of the rainforest and jungle type areas sorry I just got distracted by a squirrel I'm so sorry in areas where there's airflow high humidity and a lot of moisture and they're usually in the nooks and crannies where there's some rot and some decay on the trees which helps release nitrogen the waste from animals around them helps release nitrogen and that kind of keeps them going that's just a little something to remember with any tropical epiphyte is where does it come from how does it behave in the wild they're high up in the canopy there's airflow they get pretty constant moisture for the most part depending on the time of year but they're still pretty versatile and adaptable to being grown indoors which is great that's why we love bird's nest ferns right look at that foliage though the variegated ones all bird's nest ferns crisp up very quickly outdoors but man the variegated ones even more so so I am like I said gonna make sure that gets into the shade as far as spots or anything is concerned like that in the foliage I'm not seeing anything that's worrisome yeah the plant doesn't look perfect but the things that I would be looking out for as far as dangers to the plant would be little red dots there's some that are kind of like bacterial blight which is what this is right here that's not bacterial blight that's probably just bruising or something like that but if I were to start to see rings similar to that right there that have more of a reddish appearance that spread out from the bottoms all the way up and that being spotted around the foliage of the entire plant then that's when I'd be a little bit more concerned about that blight it's usually just due to too much moisture sitting on top of the foliage in a place with low airflow and something like that I haven't really had to deal with that before but it is still something to watch out for and now that I have this plant outdoors with some nice warmth and it's going to have that fresh soil around its roots and it's releasing more nitrogen and rainfall humidity and all of those things this should probably within the next few weeks should burst out with some new growth and that's another reason I'm not too concerned about the old growth looking bad because it's going to put out new foliage and it's all right sometimes with variegated plants people suggest using epsom salts you can put I think it's like two tablespoons per gallon of water and add that into the potting mix and even get it on the foliage I find that to be a little bit risky because if you have really hard water you end up with salt stains and stuff like that on your foliage so that kind of depends on where you are but the magnesium that's in those epsom salts supposedly can help keep the variegation from burning as much I've tried it with the stuttgart canoes before stuttgart stuttgart white variegated canoes I didn't notice a difference but some people swear by it so that might be something to experiment with if you're dealing with variegated plants and sunscorch but like I said for me hasn't made a difference which could have to do with my water chemistry and hard water and there are a lot of variables with growing plants and then again reiterating this is quite a large pot a pretty big upgrade from what it was in that's because I think it would be easier for the people who are watering these plants to water the soil without having water collect up there so I went pretty big bigger than you would typically need to for a bird's nest fern when repotting it and like I said it could stay in this for two to three years that's going to depend on how that organic material that compost breaks down as long as things keep draining well then it'll be good in this pot for a very long time they're epiphytes they don't need soil that's constantly being changed and refreshed like your typical house plant and they also aren't a plant that prefers some type of root constriction or anything like that as far as their growth is concerned the main thing is that you don't want to go too big with a pot because you don't want all the water moving away from the root system but I don't think that's going to be an issue with this since I'm repotting it outdoors during a season where it rains a whole bunch and because of that the big upgrade in pot size should be just fine and I just think it's the safest way to go about keeping this plant healthy without having to worry about water collecting around the crown or too much moisture of rot I said it a bunch you get it it's overkill but I think it's necessary to protect the plant from my people who are helping me water my plants and another option with bird's nest ferns one of the things that's so cool about them is you could mount these you can put them on a wood slab and mount them with some moss wrapped tightly around the roots and do it that way the only reason I'm not doing that is because it's sort of the antithesis of the issues I'm concerned about having with this which is that it would need to be watered a lot it's a big commitment growing pretty much anything on a slab staghorn ferns are pretty easy but anything that prefers a moist and humid environment it's a big commitment on a slab because there's nothing around it to hold on to some moisture and help re-release that around the plant you have to basically make sure they get misted and watered on a very regular basis not a big deal outdoors at least not where I live but however when it's time to move this plant into the house different story I would have to like constantly water and soak the thing I just don't really feel like doing that it would look cool I'd even thought about using a coconut shell that had been cut in half and letting it come out of that coconut that would look so neat but again a little bit more high maintenance and I'm sort of moving in more of a low maintenance direction right now I'm trying to make things easy for the people who are helping me out with my plants and everything so this will have to do and it's fine it looks good looks good enough this is going to flush out with new foliage in no time now that it's outside with some nice warm air and some fresh soil that's going to help release the good stuff out around the plant nitrogen and those things to get it growing yeah I'll keep everybody updated when it starts to flush out with new growth it's so fun watching the fronds unfurl from the middle and come out and get to see what they're going to do especially outdoors versus indoors there's usually a difference in the growth and the characteristics of the plant so I'm anxious to see basically how it does first time I've had the variegated ones outdoors which is why if you haven't been able to tell I'm being very cautious with it and making sure that everything goes well for this plant because I don't I really don't want it to die I really really really like this plant I think it's really pretty and um that I would be sad so this should do the trick though hey comment down below what are some of your potting mix formulas do you have any ratios that might be useful for people who are repotting them how do you grow your bird's nest ferns there's so much variability because they're a versatile plant there are a lot of different ways you can do things like I said with mine I like to keep them in a place where they get bright but diffused light so no direct light on them like them to be in a place that's a little bit more warm more humid and I prefer to water them more often than not just again why I use a soil that drains well just the way I prefer to do it for optimal growth from the plant but that's not how you have to grow them because they're pretty simple you don't have to do all that to keep them alive and keep them healthy like I said comment down below let us know I think it's interesting the different ways people grow their plants largely based on where they live I know people in the pacific northwest may grow these obviously probably very differently from people in the southwest where things are really arid and dry you know what do you have to do to keep them happy probably not much they're pretty sturdy and tough plants I have all my social media linked down below I use Instagram more than anything else if you like the video you can leave it a like makes a big difference for the videos and for the channel I appreciate it and subscribe as well and hit that notification bell that way you know when new videos come out and I'll keep things updated in garden tours and future endeavors on Instagram or what future endeavors on Instagram I don't even know what the heck that was supposed to mean there'll be updates particularly when it starts to flush out with new growth that's what'll be most exciting to show off because you know the old growth is it's seen better days it doesn't look terrible right all right that's enough talked long enough about this plant had a good little plant chat plant hang and hope everybody's doing well having a great day and a great life and everything's just going beautifully for you and of course as always and most importantly everybody keep on growing baby