Dicksonia antarctica (Tree Fern)

lalorm

Hi all,
I've a few tree ferns in the garden and I wrapped them over the winter with garden fleece to protect them from frost. However, I'm not sure if they survived the winter or not. I've started to water them from the top, and I've used tomato feed on them. So far only one of them is showing signs of life with 1 new frond appearing. The rest don't have any coming through. I'm not sure if they are ok. Some are soft on top and woolley when I touch them. I can feel some fronds, but not sure if they are dead or not. Others seem hard to the touch and also no signs of anything coming up.
Anyone know how to check if they are ok?

Cheers
Mike

Sonnenblumen

A bit of patience perhaps required, everything is slowly recovering from longer colder winter, reckon season is at least 1 month behind. If you can feel new fonds chances are they are alive and will emerge in time.

lalorm

Fingers crossed.

secman

I too had an anxious wait, but our large one has survived, thank God. We also planted some smaller ones, one of which now has fonds, one of them I can feel fonds but the 3rd . alas nothing yet.

On the feeding issue, i note you used tomatoe feed, I stand corrected but do they not prefer the eragatious feed ?

Secman

lalorm

A neighbour of mine had some Tree fern food, but I wasn't able to find it anywhere on sale in Dublin. After looking on the web, a specialist fern site suggested tomatoe food. So I gave it a go. If you know where I can get food for tree ferns, that would be great.

Cheers
Mike

Wibbs

Mine are in a sheltered spot under major tree cover, so most years they keep their fronds over the winter. I've never covered them or protected them. The only protection I gave them they gave themsleves in the sense that I left the dead fronds to fall and cover the stems. That and the natural cover of the serious amount of leaf mould that falls in autumn and funnels naturally into the stem head(up to a foots worth). This year they got hammered and all the fronds browned and died off. Funnily enough a few weeks after the bitter cold after a night of frost. The heavy snow seemed to protect them. They're slowly putting out new fronds now.

Now they're in a habitat very like their natural so that helps. To the degree that in the 10 years Ive had them I've had them spore and germinate and have about 6 babies.:) Any mates that grow them have them more exposed so more likely to suffer from frosts. On the fertliser front IMHO maybe try leaf mould itself? I've a damp rich clay soil(normally a pain in the rhizome) with annual leaf mould buildup, so Ive never fertilised them. I have read(and seen first hand with mates) that they can easily be over fertilised. I've also heard of people putting them in containers and suggesting they dont require much room in the roots. Well I had to move a 4 foot trunked one and the root ball was very dense and a good 6 ft plus across.

PS they're fascinating plants. Had a wasps nest nearby a few years back. At the base of the tree ferns there were a load of dead wasps. Lookedlike they were biting off chunks to build their nest and it didnt agree with them