How To Stop Killing Your Boston Fern 🌿 EASY Tips To Make Your Ferns THRIVE!

today we're going to be talking all about the Boston fern and I feel like finally I'm in a pretty good position to be able to let you know how to grow this plant successfully as a house plant and I say finally because oh my goodness it has taken me a while to get my head around this plant I've got currently about 350 plants in my collection and this has 100% been I would say in in the top 10 of most difficult I've ever owned and that's weird because I know it is a very popular house plant and there are some people that just seem to take to it like a duck to water but I am not one of those people so yeah I'm going to take you through everything that I have leared with this plant things that I wish I'd done differently the first time around just some general tips and tricks and things you can be doing yourselves to make sure yours stays looking beautiful but first if you're new here hi my name is Claire and this is Yulie I make videos all about house plant care sharing tips and tricks I've learned over the years to help keep your plants happy and healthy and yeah feel free to grab a pen and paper I'll also put some text on the screen with some helpful stuff as we go through and yeah I hope you enjoy it and I hope you find it useful let's get into [Music] [Music] it so as I've already said the Boston fan is quite well known for being quite a fussy and dramatic house plant and this is one of the plants that made me think originally that I was just fundamentally bad with plants I was like I'm giving it all the things that the internet tells me I should be doing and it's still not happy what's going on so taking it through starting with probably the first thing that you want to look at when you bring any new plant into your home is light and I remember reading that the Boston fern was very good at surviving in lower lighting conditions and I think because obviously looking at its natural habitat it is it's a plant that grows quite close to the forest floor and it grows in quite a lot of shade for that reason I think it's been deemed a low light plant when in fact it's definitely not if you look at its natural lighting requirements it is still going to be receiving dappled sunlight and kind of just very bright indirect light all day round even though it's not one that grows right at the top of the canopy so yeah I have found that this plant grows for me the best in dappled sunlight and I know some people say do not grow this plant in direct sunlight at all or it's going to burn and I think that really depends on your conditions like for example where I am in the UK currently we're in the middle of winter I've got mine right next to a south facing window and it is fine getting some of that sunlight because it's quite gentle I think if you were living in Australia for example putting it right out in bright direct sun is probably not the best idea but bright indirect light if you're in any doubt at all is what is going to do best for this plant just because it helps to mimic its natural growing conditions and that is always what you want to be doing when you bring a plant into your home that being said it's also a really good idea to look at to look at the environment in which your plants come from so for example if you've got it from a big Garden Center or something like that just look at the lighting that it was getting before because that's that's what it's going to be used to and just gradually gradually ease it into life in your home so for example if your plant has been getting really really intensely Bright Lights previously Maybe started off a little bit brighter than you would usually go in and just kind of acclimate it slowly this applies to all plants but ferns can just be quite sensitive um and in fact luckily I don't think I've ever actually ordered a Boston fern online this one I got from a local Garden Center but I have found that when you ferns to yourself they can go downhill quite quickly and I shipped a fern I think it was a peteras Alba lineata Fern about this time last year and almost instantly the plant just it it looked gorgeous for a few days and then all of its foliage crinkled went Brown it wasn't happy at all and what you can actually do in that circumstance and what I did with mine is you can chop it right back and just cover it in like a plastic bag or something like that and it will eventually start to give you New Growth again so don't give up on those ferns because I would have just completely given up on that one but it's also important to make sure that you're keeping your plant's leaves clean and with a lot of my other plants like for example my Jose Bueno here and stuff like that you can dust their leaves quite easily but because this one has got such condensed frons it's really quite difficult to do that but bearing in mind and I'll get onto this more in a moment but this is a plant that absolutely loves high levels of moisture and humidity instead of dusting this plant I will typically just get it into the shower or I'll put it outside for an hour or two when it's chucking it down with rain and I'll just allow that to clean its leaves because obviously if you don't clean its frons regularly it's not going to be able to absorb all of the light it needs in order to effectively photosynthesize because a buildup of dust and dirt can just prevent it from being able to do this and no matter how clean and tidy your house is it does just happen it happens with all house plants but it's not as easy to spot on ones like this because they're not so waxy in texture so yeah as I say I will just put it on the balcony get it in the shower and the other thing in terms of lighting from all angles that's important to think about is rotating it regularly because sometimes if I and in fact you can kind of see a little bit here if I don't rotate this plant I'll no just that all of its growth will suddenly start to go one way and that does happen as I say very very fast compared to some other plants it's kind of like in fact in a lot of ways it's kind of a little bit it behaves very similarly to a Calia a prayer plant so yeah I just either grow mine in a hanger or I just make sure that I'm rotating it on a regular basis I have actually just taken mine out of a hanger because I've got some new shelves but typically before I was growing it as a hanging plant and I would just make sure to rotate it regularly and then when it comes to watering for this plant this is an area that I know for a fact I have very much gone wrong with before and this is a plant that really enjoys being consistently moist and I am just naturally a little bit of an underwater I've got lots of plants in my collection that I allow to pretty much completely dry out before I water again and if you do that with the Boston fern it is going to kick up a stink very very quickly and it's not always possible to get the plant back so when I say consistently moist what I tend to do is I will take it out of its pot I just keep it in its Nursery pot inside another pot and I will give it a thorough thorough drench through allow any excess water to drain away and I will just do that I mean currently at the moment I don't like to schedule my watering but at the moment that tends to be every four or five days just with the current environment and how quickly the soil is drying out but during the summer months that can be that can be every couple of days um and also you might notice I'm using although this kind of looks like a Terra Cotter pot it is actually plastic and for this plant and in fact all of my fans I find that growing in a plastic pot as opposed to a terra cotta pot a really good idea just because obviously terra cotta is a porous material and it does absorb a lot of excess water from the plants which can be amazing for some plants but with ferns it means that you're going to be watering them literally all the time so unless you're ridiculously prone to overwatering I would suggest going for something plasticky but yeah what I tend to do is just allow the surface layer of the soil to dry out you can use a moisture meter for this if you want to but I personally just use my finger and yeah then once as I say once the surface level is dried out I will go ahead and water the plants again and that has that's kept it pretty happy you do just have to watch out for overwatering because that can lead to something called root rots which again can bring down your plant very quickly in case you can't tell from the name root rot is just when the roots of your plants start to rot and your plants cannot absorb anything anymore and so it rots away to nothing uh and although it is possible to bring your plants back from root rot and I have made videos on this before it can be a little bit of a pain and when you're working with quite a sensitive plant like the Boston fern anyway it can be near and possible so yeah as I say allowing good drainage and making sure that you just feel for the top lay of soil to be dry before you water again is what I found really really helps and when it comes to fertilizing for this plant it really depends on the type of fertilizer that you're using to be honest but I use a brand called Liquid Gold Leaf I've spoken about it before not sponsored at all I just think it's amazing um and for that I do actually so long as my plant is actively growing I water through with liquid Godly fertilizer every single time I water the plant um and I say when it's actively growing and I don't know how well the camera's going to pick it up but as you can see there I've got some new growth just unfurling and it does this Ador able little unwinding thing as new frons on the plants start to unfurl and as I say so long as it is giving me New Growth then I will continue to fatalize all year round and then one of the most important things to say with this one and this this does apply to all ferns but some are a little bit more adaptable than others the Boston fern in order to be happy really does need very high levels of humidity and again I know this is an area that I've gone wrong with before I've got lots of tropical plants and some of them might get the odd brown leaf here or there but this one is it's just it is so sensitive so sensitive so if you do let the humidity drop below about kind of 40% you're going to start to notice lots of Browning very cracked dry growth and your plant is not going to be happy at all so if like I know I've already spoken about light but if you have got a space with the right Lighting in your bathroom for example some people grow these by the shower because then obviously they get lots of water as it evaporates from that I personally grow mine right above my humidifier I've got a big kind of industrial levo humidifier which I will link down below I've got one of those that I run pretty much whenever I think of it I try to keep the humidity in here at a minimum of about 60% at all times but this one as I say sits right above the humidifier and probably tends to be in around about an 80% humidity Zone and I mean honestly if you were to grow this plant in 100% humidity it would be in its element so don't worry about the humidity being too high for this plant the one thing obviously you do need to think about though when you're pumping large amounts of humidity into one space especially a contained space in your home is you need to make sure you've got good air flow because if you don't mold M you all sorts of things are going to start building up which is not going to be good for you or your plants so I typically will just either open windows from time to time run fans in this space as well the other thing that you do just need to watch out for and I'm doing a whole list of dos and don'ts but the one thing you do have to watch out for with this plant if you do have windows open is it really is not a fan of cold drafts any kind of fluctuations sudden fluctuations and temperatures cold drafts hot drafts you name it this plant won't be happy so typically I will just the position that I've got mine in over there is far enough back from my doors for me to be able to open them allow somewh to come in and also still not harm the plant if that makes sense um but I know some homes do have air vents and stuff like that just make sure that your plant is well away from that drafty doors drafty Windows air vents you name it radiators goes without saying pumps lots of dry heat to the plant and that is not what we want so yeah humidity is key for this one humidity and water I would probably say I mean obviously light's important all of thesee ments are important but humidity and watering I think are the areas that most people I know typically go wrong and the ones that you need to look at the most if that makes sense and then when it comes to temperature for this plant I don't do anything special for this one as I say I've had it growing in a hanger for the last eight months in my collection I don't I don't have it on a heat mat or anything like that but I do try and keep the temperature in my space fairly consistent if I possibly can just because I've got lots of plants that don't enjoy big fluctuations and typically at this time of year the temperature is sitting at around 20° Celsius in here and as I say the plants really happy I have noticed as well that over the summer months because my flat is a top floor flat and it's literally like an attic it gets boiling boiling hot this plant hasn't complained at all so long as again I just balance that with really high levels of humidity it does mean that it kind of feels like a greenhouse in here some of the time but this plant is happy with that so I would say anywhere from about 18 to 28° C would be ideal and as I've said before in other videos as well if you're wanting to just and this is a generic thing and it does obviously come down to the the specific native environments of these plants and where they where they naturally grow but typically increasing light humidity and heat is a really good way to just help your plants produce lots of lovely big full bushy growth just because typically it replicates a tropical environment more so than it would do in a UK home so yeah those are those are the main things that I've done for mine to keep mine happy and I think like I continue to learn with my plants like this one occasionally like it will still have fronds that die off and that is normal like it's important to remember that the natural life cycle of a plant will always take place whether you're doing things perfectly or whether you could be improving so it's just looking at whether that happening regularly enough for you to worry about it like if it was happening all the time I would say Okay re-evaluate what you're doing but if it's like if you if you're losing a few fronts here and there I personally wouldn't worry oh and soil as well soil is the one thing I haven't spoken about so again I don't do anything ridiculously special for this plant but I have tried different substrates over the years I've also seeing it's an eptic plant naturally grows off other plants in the wild I've tried mounting my Boston Ferns on bark I've tried all sorts of things and currently the way that I'm growing this one is just in a soil ninja base mix which is just soil perlite and I believe a little a small amount of Horticultural charcoal and I've mixed through some tree fern fiber and bark just to make it nice and chunky and well draining and that seems to be keeping the plants really really happy but yeah that's currently what I'm doing for mine and as I say not being a natural with this plant that is what's keeping it happy so feel free to drop any questions you've got down below and I'll do my best to help but I hope you enjoyed this video and I hope you found it useful and if you did please make sure to give it a thumbs up subscribe to my channel have a lovely day and I will see you in the next [Music] video Stay Sexy F lovers