How to Propagate Ferns

1. Class Introduction : Hi, I'm Sam. And in this class I'm gonna be teaching you how to propagate ferns using cuttings and division. And the first lesson of this class, I'm going to be explaining the difference between cuttings and division. And I'll also briefly touch on and propagating from spores. Although there is no demonstration on that method of propagation, though, if you are already familiar with division and cuttings, you can go ahead and skip that lesson. The second lesson in this class is going to cover all the materials that you'll be needing in order to propagate your own ferns. Once I've covered the materials that you'll be needing, I'll be giving you two demonstrations. One showing you how to propagate through division and the other one was cuttings. I have two different ferns here. So you can see how these different methods are going to apply to each. I'll follow up the demonstrations with a lesson on how to properly take care of your new plants. And then that will be followed up by your class project. 2. Division, Cuttings & Spores: As I mentioned in this class, I'm going to be showing you how to propagate through cuttings and division. These two methods of propagation are the quickest way to get new ferns. There are already a substantial size. Whereas if you were to propagate through spores, which is the third method of propagation, then you would have to wait a lot longer in order to get a plant that is of substantial size. So the first demonstration that I'm gonna be giving you is going to be on division. And I'll be showing you how to do that using this silver lace Fern here. The best time to divide firms is going to be in the spring. But you can do it at any point in the year if you're keeping them inside and they're not going to be exposed to too much heat. Otherwise we'll end up withering and dying. When dividing the fern, I'm going to divide the rhizomes in half. And this will give me two plants that are about two inches in size. And that's the smallest size that you want to go when you're dividing. And with division, we're not going to have a great number of plans, but we'll have plants that are a great size. So depending on how big your fern is, you won't end up with a large amount of new ferns but they will be larger in size than if you were to take them from cuttings. Dividing your ferns is also something that you can do really easily when he find it's time to repot The second demonstration is going to focus on propagating through cuttings. And I'll be showing you how to do that with this white rabbits foot fern. And as you can see, the rhizomes on this plant are spilling over the side of the pot. And the swipe refer to propagate this type of fern from cuttings because it gives me a chance to clean up the sides here and just make it look less messy. Just like with division by taking cuttings, we're going to start off with a bit more of a substantial plant. Unlikely wood cuttings, you'll be able to have more plants than you would a through division, but they are going to be smaller than your divided plan. If you are interested in propagating your ferns through spores, it is quite easy. You'll just have to look on the underside of your leaves. And you'll find some leaves have little spots and those will be your spores. And the looks something like this. In order to collect your spores to propagate, you'll just want to remove the front that has spores and then place it into a paper bag lever for a day or two until it has some time to dry out. And then give the bag a little shake and the spores will fall into the bottom of the bag. And then you can so the spores in some soil. So those are the three methods of propagating fern. I hope this lesson gave you better understanding of the difference between the two. And sort of the pros and cons. As I mentioned, with cuttings, we're going to end up with a lot more plants, but they're not going to be as large as the divided plans. And what the divider plants will have bigger plants. But we're not gonna be able to get as many. You'll be able to get the most amount of firms using spores. But it's going to take you much longer than if you were to use cuttings or division. So now let's take a look at what you'll be needing in the materials lesson. 3. Materials Required: Alright, so the materials that you're going to be needing in order to propagate your ferns are pretty much going to be the same, whether you're propagating through division or through cuttings. The only difference is that when we take our cuttings, we're gonna need some wire or some toothpicks to help hold our rhizomes in place because we're not going to be burying them. And I'll explain that a bit more during the demonstration. But other than that, you'll need the same materials for both. So the first thing that you're going to need is some soil. I'd recommend using some regular potting mix and some peat moss or coco peat. Personally, I prefer coco peat just because it's more of a sustainable option. But either way, mixing your soil and your coco peat or peat moss together in equal portions will create a growing media that is both well draining, but it's also still going to hold on to some of that moisture, which are ferns are really going to appreciate. You'll also need a pot, preferably one that has drainage holes in the bottom. Because as much as ferns like water, they're not going to want to sit in it. You'll also want to choose a pot that's about two inches wider than your cutting or your divided plant. So it has some room to grow, but not too much. You're also going to want a knife or some sharp Pruners ordered to take your cuttings and divide your plants, disinfecting your knife or your printers before and in-between cuts is also recommended just in case the plant has any disease, you won't be passing it on to other plants. You also want a spray bottle so you can mist your ferns every day or so to make sure that the soil doesn't dry out. There's also two optional materials that you can use. The first one being rooting hormone, which will help your new ferns to establish roots more quickly. And the second optional material is rocks, which you can take and put in a tray underneath your newly potted plant. And I'd add some water to the tray and then set your pot on top. This will just help to add a bit more humidity to the air. And having rocks will keep your plant above the waterline so it's not going to be sitting in water. So especially if you're keeping your ferns indoors and the air in your houses really drive from having the heat on or you just live in a really dry environment. I highly recommend including this step. And likewise, if you already have a humidifier in your room or if you live in a very humid climate, then feel free to skip this step. But those are the materials that you'll be needing in order to propagate your own ferns. Now we can move on to the next lesson where I'll be demonstrating how to propagate your ferns through division. 4. Propagating Through Division: So the first thing that we're gonna wanna do is take our fern out of the pot. So we're just going to give the potter squeeze all the way around. And then we're going to grab just around the base and slide it out. As you can see, it's quite pot bound. So I'm just going to go around and gently loosen up the roots. I'm doing this slowly and gently will help us to keep as much of the roots intact as possible. So now that the roots are loosened up, I'm going to pull it apart right down the center. And this will give me my two plants that are both two inches wide, which is the smallest you wanna go when you're dividing your ferns Once you get to the base here, it gets a bit tougher because it's a lot more dense. If the plants aren't coming apart easily, you can use Pruner's or a knife to help separate them. Now there's two different sections. There's still a ton of roots intact. Going to tease out a little bit. If you have a little rake that would work well too. Because the roots are really long and I'm going to give them a little bit of a cut so to fit better and have some more space to grow in the pot. Now I'm going to take this and put it up. And I'm just going to scoop some soil over to the size of the pot and create a little, uh, well, that I can put my Divided fern into. And then just go around the pot making sure their soil all around the roots and that the plant is planted securely in the pot. And so there it is, all potted up. And now it has a lot more room to grow within this pot. As you can see, we still have some little stems and rise to the rhizomes are above the soil, which is what we want. Otherwise we'll end up with rot. Now let's take a look at propagating from cuttings. 5. Propagating Through Cuttings: So unlike with division, while we're propagating the rabbit's foot fern and taking cuttings, we can keep it in its pot. The first thing that you're going to want to do is prepare your pots that you're gonna be putting your cuttings into. So I have my pots here and I have moisten the soil just a little bit because it was quite dry, once you have your pots ready, you're going to take a look at the rhizomes that are hanging over the edge of your pots. You want to look for rhizomes that have at least one healthy frond or leaf attached. So your new cuttings will be able to photosynthesize right away. If you come across a rhizome that you want to use, it has multiple fronds on it like this one here. And one of them happens to be dead or dying. Then you'll want to go ahead and remove that unhealthy frond before you take your cuttings. You also want to make sure that the rhizome that you are cutting is alive. And you can tell this by gently scratching. Some are a little patch of the fuzz off of the rhizome. And if you see here, it's green. And so that means that the rhizome is alive. You were to see brown and then you'll want to trim that part off because the rhizome is dead. So once you find a rhizome that is alive, it has at least one healthy frond on it. You can take your scissors or your pruners and take a cutting. And we're going to want are cuttings to be about two to three inches. And so here is my first cutting. So now I'm gonna take my second cutting again, making sure the rhizome is hanging over the pot. I have at least one healthy frond and the rhizome is alive. So now that I have my second cutting, I'm going to start potting them up. So putting up these cuttings is going to be a little bit different than how we've plotted up other cuttings from the past. Because these rhizomes are aerial roots, we're not going to plant them in the soil because they would rot and this is where the wire that I was talking about in the materials section is going to come in. So you're gonna take your cutting and you're gonna just lightly place it on top of the soil. You don't want to bury it as I mentioned. So just lay it on top. And then you're gonna grab your piece of wire. And we're just going to stick that down into the soil on either side of the rhizome. So that will help hold it in place. And it won't move around. And just make sure it's nice and firmly in place. Now I'm gonna go ahead and do the same thing for the second cutting. But for this one, as you can see, it's a bit of an odd shape because it has that curl. So I'm just going to place that outside of the pot because I still have enough rhizome touching the soil. And again, I'm going to just tack that down with a piece of metal wire and just make sure that's nice and in place. Just pushing the soil around it to help hold it down. And there we go. Both rhizomes are all polished up and nicely secured. So now I'm just going to give them a little bit of a mist with the spray bottle. And I'm gonna make sure to get this outside part of the rhizome as well. Now that they're all nice and water n, I'm just going to take them and place them in an area where they'll get indirect sunlight. 6. Aftercare : Taking care of you new cuttings or divided plans is quite easy. The most important thing you need to remember is to keep your plants in indirect light. If you start to notice that there's some browning on your leaves and they're a little bit crispy then that's a sign. They're getting too much light. And the next most important thing to remember is to keep your soil damp. And this is especially important for the firms that we've taken cuttings from. As they don't have roots established yet. Something you can do in order to help keep the soil moisture is to take a clear plastic bag and place it over your fern, like you can see here. And this will help hold in the moisture. You'll just want to remove the bag if you start to notice a lot of condensation building up. And then once the condensation is gone and you can place the bag back on again. And then once you start to see new frond popping up, you can remove the bag for good. Temperature wise, You’ll wanna keep your ferns and a room that's about 16 to 21 degrees, which is equal to about 60 to 70 Fahrenheit. Other than that, you can keep your friends happy by giving them some house plant fertilizer once a month from April through September. If you follow these guidelines, should have happy, healthy ferns with new growth in no time. Now let's have a look at your class project. 7. Class Project: So for this class, your class project is going to be to take a picture of the ferns that you're going to be either taking cuttings from or dividing, then a picture of your cuttings or your divided plants. And then finally, a picture of all of your new plants. Pot it up. Once you have these three pictures, you could upload them in the project section below this video. This way we can all see your new plants and I can offer you some feedback. You can also submit some progress photos if you'd like to show your plants growing and starting to produce some new friends. If you have any issues with submitting your project or you come up with questions along the way, you can reach out to me in the discussion section, which is also below this video. And I'll get back to you as soon as I can. If you'd like to stay up to date on my future classes, you can click the follow button and then you'll be notified as soon as I post a new class. I really hope you found this class helpful. And I look forward to seeing your projects.