| Description | A popular plant grown indoors and commonly used as a green filler plant in patio pots, hanging baskets, etc. This plant is not an Asparagus and it is not a Fern! |
|---|---|
| Pronunciation | (ass-SPAR-uh-gus)(den-sif-FLOR-us)(SPRING-er-eye) |
| Plant Type | All Plants, Indoor Foliage |
| Sunlight | full sun to semi-shade |
| Moisture | Prefers to be kept evenly moist. Occasionally letting the plant get dry won't kill it. Letting it get bone dry will cause a massive leaf drop. Over watering will also cause yellowing and leaf drop. |
| Growing Media | average house |
| Temperature | average house, tolerates cold, I have had plants outside into the upper 30 F |
| Flowers | The flowers are: small, white, waxy, fragrant and have bright yellow/orange anthers. |
| Fruit | The fruit starts green and ripens to red. The black seeds are small to medium in size. |
| Leaves | Produces pendulous stems covered with small linear leaves. Once again Mother Nature has tricked us. The leaves are really not leaves but small-flattened stems called cladodes. The plant rapidly produces strong root masses. Many of the roots will have bulbous fleshy masses. These can act as water storage devices. |
| Roots | forms masses of white tuberous roots |
| Dimensions | Will become large, cascading over two feet, easily filling out a 10-12" pot. On purpose I have not transplanted plants over an extended period of time and they have either broken the pot or pushed up, out of the pot, leaving only a large mass of white fleshy roots. Stems can reach up to 3 feet long. |
| Maintenance | As time goes on the plant will grow out of the pot and need to be transplanted. I have taken the pot bound plants cut an inch thick slab of roots off of the bottom, and trimmed an inch off the sides and replant. Given a little TLC, the plants have recovered. Although this plant can be cut back, it doesn't recover rapidly from this process, but many times this is a necessity. |
| Propagation | The most common way is to grow from seed. The seeds are hard and black I have germinated the seeds by directly seeding them and also soaking them over night. Both methods seem to work equally well. Older plants can be divided. |
| Native Site | Native to South Africa, Natal. |
| Misc Facts | Named after Karl Sprenger (1846-1917), German nurseryman and introducer of a few plants at Vomero, Italy. |
| Author's Notes | I have grown this Asparagus Fern many times. One thing I learned is if it gets to dry to many times the floor will become littered with the yellow, dead leaves (cladodes). |
| Notes & Reference | #02-Exotic Plant Manual (Alfred Byrd Graf), #21-Indoor Gardening (Chicago Botanical Gardens Staff), #70-Indoor Plants (Courtuer and Clark), #158-Plantepedia (Maggie Stuckey) |
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