hi there Nigel Saunders of KW bonai
today we're looking at my asparagus fern
again this will be the second video of
this tree or
plant um in the last video we repotted
it and we did what styling we could do
on it uh it was looking a
little H what's the word less than
healthy I guess it was a little weak on
top it hadn't been repotted in 3 or 4
years so we repotted it put it in better
soil and the Vigor is coming back to the
tree the reason we're making the video
today is that the plant is in flower
right now there's some nice white
flowers here and there on it so I'll
give you a close-up view of that so
here's a close-up of the flowers you can
see
they're very
small they start off as a little round
sort of
globe and when they open up they have a
little bit of yellow inside so they're
really quite nice and they're kind of
the right scale for a you know a plant
or tree of this size so yeah I really
like the
flowers So today we're going to do a
little bit of work on it we're just
going to prune some of these longer
shoots that are out of the rounded shape
of our canopy off so we're going to trim
them
shorter and you just have to give the
tree a
haircut a hedge type pruning is about
all you can do in these
some of the you know you'll get one long
shoot with some sub branches coming off
of it you can prune those back shorter
also otherwise they'll get too
long so you can kind of prune out a lot
of Crossing
foliage you can uh you know you
can just prune it to the profile if you
want or you can go in and clean it up a
bit
more but again all the structure is just
temporary
uh you know as it continues to grow
older branches die off or older older
leaves so it's a kind of tree or plant
that doesn't need a lot of care you just
prune it to shape every now and then and
that's about all you can
do I don't want to prune off too many of
the flowers but uh
we want to give it a little better
shape as these uh leaves harden off they
go from a light green color to a darker
green and the Leaves last quite a long
time
um they'll probably
last almost a year like the you know the
leaf will come out it'll extend and and
sort of mature and you'll probably get a
year before it dies back sometimes even
more so you know once you've shaped the
tree it's just a matter of pruning off
the shoots as they start extending out
beyond your profile and that's about it
for the shaping of the
tree I've got a few branches out the
back here that are really
low and they're not too bad but I don't
want them like dragging on the ground
here so I'm GNA prune some of them
off well probably all of these low
ones like
that and then there's another one back
here that we can prune off like
so that looks better gives it more of
a you know a feeling of the trunk to it
which is just Roots the other thing I
want to do with this plant is I want to
weed it and I want to get a layer of
moss on it I've never put a layer of
moss on it just because
uh I just never got around to it this is
uh you know always this tree or plant
always sits in the corner and I water it
and when a big shoot comes off and
starts blocking out my other trees I'll
prune it but it doesn't get a lot of
care of this tree
um I I should give it more because it's
interesting looking for a you know house
plant so we're going to put some Moss
around the base of the tree and clean up
our soil a
bit so let's do that
next yeah so there's not a lot of weeds
it's mostly these
uh little ones that look like clover but
aren't I don't know the name of them I
did it one time
but yeah they look like clover but
they're they're a type of a
weed so we just want to pick those
out this plant start out as a
little
uh you know representing a tree in a
forest in one of my
plantings and it kind of just grew and
it's uh 22 years old now so it's getting
quite
old and old plants like this they uh
they're kind of
special everyone has you know a mom or
dad who has has a house plant that's
really
old sometimes Jades
or you know any house plant that's you
know really old and they they start to
get interesting
features and I
think you know this one's certainly
unique as far as asparagus ferns
go it's
uh probably one of the more unique
ones okay so the next step we want to
level out some of this soil scrape off
our top layer and you know get it
slightly below the lip of the pot and
then get some moss and plant it and this
tree I'm normally very concerned about
you know I don't want moss growing up
the trunk but I think on this tree it
would look quite good if Moss kind of
started growing up the roots and
that you know you don't want it so heavy
you can't see the roots but I don't
think it would look bad to have a bit of
moss mixed in with the roots on this one
might make it look even more tree likee
these roots will grow in the air on
humid
days some of these have dried up a
bit so I'm just pruning off some of the
ones that are
looking a little dry on the ends that uh
you know aren't very
goodlooking let's start scraping our
soil
back trying not to make too much of a
mess we just kind of want it to flow
into the
ground the the uh the Fern's kind of
styled like a like a ficus tree I guess
with uh you know supposed to look like
aerial Roots covering the
trunk it doesn't quite look like that
but uh that's kind of the
closest Vision I see of it is a sort of
like a Fus
tree um these asparagus ferns they're
from South
Africa and they're poisonous all parts
of the plant so don't eat them
not that you were going to eat them but
don't don't eat them anyway and uh
they're considered a weed in you know
any tropical climate pretty
well except maybe the
native their native birthplace so in
places like
Florida they can run wild and they're
very
invasive but in the pot like
this they're
fine okay that's looking pretty good I
think we have it just below the lip of
the
pot so our Moss will sit on there nicely
maybe a little more off
here to get the trunk like this in the
tree What I've
Done
starting 22 years ago every time I repot
it I raise it up a bit in the soil level
so you know normally in aspar Fern is uh
planted right up to the foliage I just
expose a little little bit more each
year and you get kind of that above
ground root
system that's Hardy and can
take the
environment so every year it gets a
little taller and a little
bigger I'd love to put this in a show
sometime just to confuse people so
they'd have to guess what what it is I
don't know if too many people would
guess if it's an asparagus fern or not
not
sure okay let's get some moss and start
applying it to the surface okay let's
start planting our Moss so I got some
big big clumps of
it we'll
just place it on the surface like
that the Moss is a little dry but
uh we'll wet it down and trim
it this is quite
bushy know kind of like wild
Moss rather than my domesticated trimmed
kind Moss gone wild yeah so to wet it
I'm just going to get one of my spray
bottles
this will wet both the Moss and the
soil so then you can push it down and
it'll you know have good contact with
the soil and grow really
well we're going to prune it in a bit
too but for now I'm just kind of getting
the Moss placed on
nice big piece
there we'll bring it right up to the
roots of the
tree so we'll wet it all down
now asparagus ferns can take quite a bit
of
dryness you know they do need to be
watered every now and then but
uh they can take some
drought okay we just going to make sure
all our Moss is pressed down and in
contact with the
soil or the
medium always sounds like something out
of a ghost
story the
medium we're in contact with the
medium
there okay so I'm going to trim some of
this Moss away from from the edge here
that's
overhanging always a no no and Bon side
to have Moss overhanging the lip of your
pot looks
untidy and Bon side
is the tree and the pot combined so each
has each has equal
importance so you don't want Moss
overhanging your
pot so we're going to let the Moss dry a
bit it's kind of soaking wet right
now and when it dries a bit we'll come
in and give it a light pruning just to
give it a nice fine layer and then the
Moss will probably grow like crazy in
the
next you know month or so indoors here
and then when it gets outside it's going
to grow like crazy so we'll be doing
lots of pruning and maintenance to it
for pting the Moss I like to use these
curved surgical scissors I get these at
the surplus store for
$2.25 each
and you know I use them till they get
dull and I might even sharpen them the
odd time but uh when they're too bad
then I go buy a new
pair and they're good for pruning moss
and so that's all we need to do is just
keep our Moss pruned in check so it
looks good so we don't build up a big
thick fuzzy layer that gets out of
control that's all the work we'll be
doing on our asparagus fern today we've
got it pruned up looking as nice as it
can for now and it's got some really
nice white flowers on it which I really
like so Nigel Saunders of KW Bonsai
thanks for watching and we'll see you on
the next video