Staghorn ferns are epiphytes. They cling to tree trunks, rocks or whatever they happen to grab onto. They can root into decayed wood if it is porous enough, but they are satisfied to just cling to the exterior. They do not need soil. They sort of make their own soil by collecting debris that falls from the canopies of trees above. In the jungles where they live, they get all the water they need from rain. They often live in the crotches of branches because that is where they happen to land. (The epiphyte I wrote about earlier was just a palm that landed in the wrong place, but is not really an epiphyte. https://tonytomeo.wordpress.com/2017/11/15/epiphyte/ )
In home gardens, staghorn ferns are often grown on wooden plaques so that they can be moved around like potted plants. Because it does not rain much here, they need to be watered occasionally. They do not grow very fast, but eventually need to be attached to larger plaques, or divided into smaller clumps that fit onto new plaques. Alternatively, they can be grown like plants in hanging pots, but without the pots. Even if they start out in pots, they may eventually envelop and obscure their pots, and form a big rounded hanging mass that only wants water and debris from above. A small bit of fertilizer might improve their naturally light color, but too much will roast leaf margins.
My colleague Brent Green acquired this humongous and well rounded specimen from a client who wanted it removed from an olive tree that it had grown too big for. It had been there for decades. Brent gives it a banana every month or so because it likes potassium. It does not get much debris from above in Brent’s well groomed garden.
Tony Tomeo 
We had a massive one in a previous garden but we had to leave it behind when we moved. They are very expensive to buy here.
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They are expensive here as well, especially such big specimens. There was a restaurant in Pasadena that had a few very large specimens hanging on chains from trees, and two that were about as big as this one hanging from the big trunks of coral trees.
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Wow that’s huge! How does one ‘give’ a plant a banana???
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Brent just drops it in on top. It decays just like any other debris that the ferns would collect. There is a larger specie of staghorn fern with larger upper fronds that flair outward to funnel debris in. This is not so obvious with these smaller ferns. All of Brent’s ferns seem to be happy. I took a few that were just as happy in my garden, and I just dropped in a bunch of old valley oak leaves in every once in a while, but never gave any of them a banana.
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I have a mental image of holding a banana out tentatively and the fern reaching out for it, the banana vanishing into the plant’s depths and then a moment later the empty banana skin dropping to the ground.
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That is just . . . weird.
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Lovely- we used to grow these in NZ. I wonder how one would do In Illinois- we could bring it into the glasshouse in the winter? Might make a nice present do you think?
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Even if I could afford to send it there, you would not want to move it around from the garden to the glasshouse. If you can see the black railing in the background, that is the top of the stairs to the roof deck. The fern hangs just about a foot below the deck, and about two feet from the ground, so if the garage is ten feet tall, the fern is about six or seven feet tall and just as wide. it is very heavy. If you decide to grow one, start with a small one! They really dislike cold weather!
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I have my mother-in-law’s staghorn that is at least 28 years. I do find it likes some fertilizer occasionally. I move it inside for the winter and keep it watered and misted.
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Brent also says they like fertilizer; but he also fertilized another staghorn fern too much so that the foliage burned. It was the species with the bigger leaves that look like moose antlers. I never fertilized mine. The color was fine, but they did not grow very well until they went back to Brent’s garden.
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Stags are interesting creatures, to be sure. That one is huge!
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Yes! Brent was not happy about taking it away from the olive tree where it had lived for so long. The olive tree looks better without it, but it was sad to see it go.
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They are so interesting. We can’t keep them outside here in the cold weather, but people do grow them on boards. Another reminder that nature is amazing.
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Amazing and weird . . . and efficient. These ferns make use of debris before it even gets to the bottom of the forest.
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So sculptural and animate!
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Yes; there is another species with bigger fronds that look like moose antlers. It is rare though.
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Haha — love the idea of feeding a banana to the epiphyte!
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Brent forgot to feed it a monthly banana once, . . . only once. He never liked that cat much anyway.
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Reblogged this on Tony Tomeo and commented:
No one had heard of it when this article posted three years ago; but does this suspended colony of staghorn fern look like a Coronavirus?
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