Fern on a stick

Many, many years ago my younger brother emigrated to New Zealand and in due course met a girl, got married and bought house on the outskirts of Auckland. He wrote from time to time to tell us of his adventures, but one letter described his garden where, he said, was a fern growing on a stick! Not being a plant lover he hadn't heard that many tree ferns were native to his adopted country.

When I arrived at Arduaine Garden in 1992 there was a single tree fern growing there, planted unfortunately in a hollow at the bottom of a slope, not ideal tree fern country. The next cold winter killed it off, I thought, but two years later it began to grow again and ended up as a fine specimen. I moved it to a better place and bought several more to keep it company. 

One year while visiting a colleague at Brodick Garden, on the Isle of Arran, he showed me a number of tree ferns, Dicksonia antarctica, which had self-sown from spores a lifetime ago. He dug a few up for me and they were taken back to Arduaine and planted there. One of them I kept in a pot and took to the Gardening Scotland show several times as part of the Glorious Gardens of Argyll & Bute exhibit.

When I retired I brought it with me to Oban, where I planted it on the slope below our house. I meant to Blip the new fronds as they began to push upwards, but such was the heat of this spring that they shot up before I could catch them. So here they are already quite well developed. When they're larger I shall cut of some of the older fronds.

Quote of the day:

John Muir - "Only spread a fern-frond over a man's head and worldly cares are cast out, and freedom and beauty and peace come in."