That perspective is so overplayed.

@@HousePlantJournal Oh you give me hope! I was beginning to think it is a diva. I've been struggling with mine.

Would love an update! I totally forgot I tried wick as well with my money tree. It worked for a while but then something started happening to it so I took it out. Id love to try it again with my maidenhair 🤔

@@DejaDrewit The maidenhair turned out to be a failure. I succeeded until I repotted into a five inch pot, but the wick I was using became clogged somehow and the pot dried out. I replaced the wick with a length of paracord, and set up a couple more wick fed pots with rabbit's foot ferns which are doing well. I am also experimenting with Venus flytraps and an African violet. With the Venus flytraps I am using a mineral free potting medium and RO/DI water, since these plants cannot stand being fertilized. I was able to keep one flytrap going since last summer, including a three month stay in my refrigerator to stimulate dormancy. I just repotted it and a couple new ones I picked up at Walmart, and they seem to be having a little trouble adjusting to my new soil mix, so it's a little too soon to predict results. As a general rule, I would only recommend wick watering for plants that need a continuously moist soil. Most house -plants prefer that the soil dry out between waterings.

@@emmitstewart1921 I use self watering pots as a guarantee to being an sometimes absent minded plant parent who might not remember to water….

@@sandragee2864 What works for you is good for you. I use a different system. Mine starts with an ordinary pot filled with a fast-draining soil mixture. a wick comes out through one of the drainage holes. This sits on top of a reservoir with two holes in the lid. One hole is near the edge where I refill the reservoir, the other hole is closer to center and the wick goes down through it. My reservoir is made from the transparent containers used by delis to serve foods. These allow me to instantly see how much water is in the reservoir. I learned this method from a person who grows African violets for show. He has hundreds of violets, and if he neglects their watering his plants soon show the effects. My experiment with the maidenhair fern failed because the yarn wick got clogged with algae and wouldn't carry enough water to keep the pot soil damp. I replaced it with a wick made from Black parachute cord. The black outer layer prevents algae growing on the interior fibers. I now have Two rabbits foot ferns, three Venus Flytraps, two miniature roses, and one African violet growing on the system.

Years ago I belonged to a garden club in the Dallas area. One of our members had a small greenhouse, and like me, she loved maidenhair ferns, and had many of them. She successfully propagated them using bricks which she put in clear plastic shoeboxes filled with rainwater, thereby keeping the surface constantly moist. I’ve forgotten the exact details, but somehow the plants will naturally shed their spores on the back of the leaves, and the tiny spores would fall down onto the damp bricks. There would first be a sort of algae that would grow and then out of them would spring the baby maidenhair plants.

Is it indoors or outdoors??

@@dawnmcfarland7011 she has it in her conservatory? I think that’s what’s called! But before she just had it in her kitchen back at home country. She brought her plant all the way to the uk 😅😂 I would have never managed to keep it alive

try it again 🥹

Yay!

i put mine on rocks, and mist it daily, that seems to do the trick, i have kiled a few, ferns are not an easy plant, you sure picked a hard one haha

That's a problem for many beginners. they often buy plants without knowing where they come from with poor results. Maidenhair ferns live in deeply shaded spots in forests where only filtered light penetrates, and, as a result, the soil never dries out completely. By the same token, the tree roots quickly absorb any excess water, so this leaves them in soil that is constantly moist, but never wet. By coincidence, the same applies to African Violets. Your first instinct, to move them out of the sun was correct. The second, to increase water, was also correct. I hope that your plant is still doing well. Here is some advice for other beginners. When you find a plant you like, the first thing you want to do is to identify it. Don't settle for the common name. sometimes you will find the same common name is applied to as many as ten or more totally different plants. Research until you get the scientific name. Then go online and search that species. Google, Wikipedia, and You tube are excellent resources for this. Usually, you can easily find other growers who can tell you what treatments that have been successful for them. Lacking that, you can find descriptions of its natural habitat and deduce its needs from that. Most of all, don't give up because one or two plants fail. There are over a million species of plants living on planet Earth. Thousands of them would find conditions on your windowsill just perfect. All you have to do is find one of them.

About how much water daily?

How are they doing now a year later?

I have a 15 year old pot of maidenhair fern & will try to scrape spores off when I see well developed spores. I’ve always kept it outside on a north facing porch in the hot humid Texas Gulf Coast weather in an interesting self watering pot that has a water reservoir that sits on top of the soil’s surface. I water it and the reservoir daily during the summer.

Haha, thank you very much! If you're on Instagram, I tend to write a lot more!

I brought one back from the dead as well! I just crossed my fingers and now I have a lot of lovely fronds and also have seen the spores. She's a survivor!

That's fascinating!

Thanks! I saw them growing off the side of a Rocky cliff in Taiwan between some buildings - so resilient!

Hey i have a maiden hair fern. I water regulary when the soul is dry and i went away for two days and came home and found my ferm frons complete dry and crispy. Shit what have i done .

Thats because any plant grows easy outdoors. The challenge is keeping them alive in a pot indoors. I water mine heavy and drain once per week. I stuff moss around the topsoil to keep moist. Success

You're very welcome! Happy growing!

Same here. I am unwilling to give up on this one!

I, too, will not give up!

Just leave it, if it grew there you shouldnt touch it, nature knows its way

Me too!

I planted my first one in a big pot with a Hoya carnosa in it in my west facing conservatory with no direct sun. I have automatic watering for the pot, but the soil does get dry sometimes in the summer. I just cut it back, give it a soak and back it comes. It has put up with draughts, high heat and near freezing temperatures in the winter. I also have one in the bathroom, no sun at all and the Venetian blinds are usually down. As long as I give it half a mug of water when I brush my teeth it looks great, and I just break off any fronds that are turning yellow/brown. I must have the idiot proof variety, as I haven’t managed to kill any, in fact they have jumped ship to a nearby pot too!