The showy and beautiful foliage makes the asparagus fern a very good houseplant. Although if the winters are not very strong where you live, with almost no frosts, they can grow outdoors without problems. Whether you are growing indoors or outdoors, you will always have to be careful, as it is toxic and can be dangerous for children and pets. In this article we will analyze how and when to propagate an asparagus fern, you will see that it is a very simple task. 😉
When outdoors, and comfortable, asparagus ferns have some small flowers and berries. Coincidentally, this is where we can get its seeds, which will be useful for one of the propagation methods. But hey, we will analyze that in the next sections.
1. How to propagate asparagus fern
To begin with, it must be clarified that there are two ways to propagate an asparagus fern. The first and I think the most used is through the division of plants, and the second from their seeds.
Since they are two totally different procedures, I will analyze each of the methods separately. Then you decide which one you carry out.
1.1 Propagation from plant division
Let’s start with what I consider the fastest and easiest method, which consists of dividing a well-developed plant. The method is simply to take this developed plant and divide it into several specimens, which we will take care of to have new asparagus ferns.
As the first advice to carry out this progacacion is that you water the plant very well, this to soften the soil. Once this is done you can remove the fern from the ground, do it carefully and trying to get the root with as much soil as possible.
Once extracted, we must analyze how many parts we will divide the plant into. Try to divide it into equal parts and that these are not too small. To cut and divide the plant, find a very sharp sanitized knife.
After dividing, place each specimen in a pot. The size of the pots should not be less than 15 cm in diameter. It would be nice if you get a potting soil mix. This soil is light with good drainage and enough nutrients to help asparagus ferns grow quickly.
Once you have all of your new ferns in their respective pots, find a warm, well-lit place to put them. Do not forget to water them, do it when you see that the first centimeters of soil are dry. Do a good watering but without saturating the pot with water, an excess of water is not good.
With the right conditions and good care in a couple of weeks you will start to notice that the new asparagus fern plants start to grow. Otherwise, just a couple of days after dividing the plants, you will see the plant dry out, which is very rare if you take good care of them.
1.2 Propagation from seeds
Propagating an asparagus fern with its seeds is a slower procedure than the previous one. In the division of plants, parts of an adult specimen, which greatly accelerates the process.
But although the use of seeds is somewhat slower, it is a more than valid procedure. Let’s see how you must do it to be successful.
The first thing you need is to get asparagus fern seeds. If you have a plant and it has grown to produce ballas, allow it to mature and extract the seeds from there. In case it has not produced ballas, that is, you do not have a place to get seeds from, I recommend that you propagate them by dividing the plants.
If you have obtained seeds, one day before sowing them it is good to place them in water. What we are looking for is to moisten them well and soften them before placing them on the floor.
I recommend that you plant them in a pot, this is so that you can always move it to a warm place, thus accelerating germination. Place it in well-drained soil with lots of organic matter. And do not put the seeds more than 1 cm deep.
With all the seeds of your asparagus fern sown, do a good watering and cover the pot with a plastic sheet. With this plastic sheet what we want is to create a mini greenhouse, thus increasing the temperature inside the pot.
Whenever you notice that the soil has started to dry out, remove the plastic sheet and proceed with watering. Do it with a sprinkler, if you drop the water too abruptly you can end up removing some seeds from the ground, and we don’t want that.
After about three or four weeks, and if you have given it proper care, you will begin to see the first plants grow. Analyze the health of the plants that are being born, if you see that any of them has any symptoms of disease, remove it before it infects the others.
Once the plants have developed a couple of leaves, you can transplant them into another pot. Look for pots that are no less than 10 cm in diameter.
2. When to propagate asparagus fern
These plants do not like cold at all, their development occurs in the warm months. That is why to ensure that the propagation of your asparagus fern is successful you must wait until the cold of winter has completely left behind. On warm spring and summer days this is the ideal time for propagation.
In the case of growing indoors, where the plant is not exposed to cold, it can be propagated in autumn and even in winter. Although it is always preferable to wait for the hot months. In those days the growth rate of the plant is much higher.
If you have opted for seed propagation, germination and growth will be faster during spring and summer. And in plant division, the high growth rate in the warm months will allow your asparagus fern to recover from stress more quickly.
3. Can I propagate asparagus fern from cutting?
When we talk about the asparagus fern, it is very common for the following question to appear. Is it possible to propagate it from cutting? There are many plants in our garden that we can reproduce in this way. But I’m sorry to tell you that this is not the case with the asparagus fern.
As we saw in the previous section, the two ways to propagate this plant are by division or seeds. In case you cut a stem from this fern and plant it, it will never develop roots. This is because it grows through tuberculous roots, which will not develop from its stem.
No rooting hormone will make it possible for your asparagus fern to propagate from cuttings. But as you have seen dividing plants is very simple. So you don’t have to worry about that. You can reproduce it without any problem.
Cover Image Source – Wikipedia.org
More information:
- Asparagus fern – daf.qld.gov.au.
- Aparagus fern general cares – tellys.com.
- Asparagus densiflorus ‘Sprengeri’ – edis.ifas.ufl.edu.