Mulberry tree comparison

I love berry season, and one of the best tasting berries is the mulberry, which also happens to be one of the easiest to grow.  I currently grow three varieties of mulberry tree.  If I had space/water/time I would grow many more varieties, but for now I grow three varieties of mulberry. 

I currently grow two white mulberries (Morus alba), and one white shahtoot (Morus macroura).  I thought it was time to write a brief comparison of them. 

Mulberry variety comparison

The one on the left is a dark fruiting form of white mulberry, Morus alba.  I was told it was a black mulberry, or an 'English black mulberry', but it is not.  Even though it is not a black mulberry, it is a great little tree and has worked hard and earned a place in my garden. 

The one in the middle is another variety of white mulberry, this one is white-lavender fruited and is non-staining.  I've had this tree for a few years, it is now 15 to 20 feet tall.  I'm thinking of hacking it back in winter so the fruit is easier to reach.  

The one on the right is a white shahtoot.  White shahtoot is potentially a different species to the others,  Morus macroura, or it is a distinct long fruited form of white mulberry, or maybe it is a hybrid between M alba and one of the other Morus species.  I am not entirely certain.  This one is not as well suited to my climate as the other two, but it crops and grows each year so I haven't removed it.  

Mulberries - typical fruit from each tree

Comparing the two varieties of white mulberry M alba, is simple.  Both of these trees grow very fast, which is characteristic of white mulberries.  The leaves and growth pattern are much the same between the two types.  When not in fruit I would struggle to tell them apart.  This makes sense as they are both the same species.

The fruit of the darker one is usually a little larger than the lighter one, longer and fatter.  The darker ones taste more sour but in a good way, and they have greater depth of flavour.  Darker berries can stain things, this can be an issue when the fruit is stolen and deposited by birds. 

The lighter mulberry produce smaller berries, some are white and others have a purple blush to them.  They look vaguely similar to immali corn in their colouration.  These mulberries do not stain anything, which is nice as the birds do steal a lot of my berries.

Two mulberry varieties - the dark ones are larger

Two varieties of white mulberry (Morus alba)

I am yet to see a true black mulberry (Morus nigra) for sale in Australia.  I have seen plenty of trees labelled as nigra, yet so far none of them have been the real thing and all have been mislabeled alba.  The dark fruited one I have was listed as Morus nigra, yet it is clearly not M nigra.

M nigra is a slow growing tree and is difficult to propagate by cuttings, the buds are thick, often thicker than the branches they are borne on, and the stems of the berries are tiny and almost non-existent.  The taste of the fruit of a black mulberry is far superior to the best white mulberry.  

Dark fruited white mulberries

My dark fruited white mulberry is a really great tree.  It is very vigorous, and crops really well.  The berries are reasonably large, and are produced in large numbers.  They ripen over an extended period of time, which is common for white mulberries.  

The taste of the fruit is great if picked when fully ripe, few berries taste as good as a ripe mulberry.  If picked under-ripe the taste is good but not as great, and like all mulberries the fruit does not ripen further after being picked.  We discovered that the stem gets a little colour when they are fully ripe.  If the stem is only green, then they are not yet completely ripe.  This is good to know. 

These are not as sweet as the lighter coloured fruits, but they have a depth of flavour that is lacking in the other varietes.  I really like the taste of these darker mulberries.  I am told they make great pies, but at my house the berries are eaten so fast that few ever make it into the house.

The only issue I have with this tree is that it grows too fast, and gets top heavy.  As it rushes to reach the sky, the wood does not seem thick enough to hold the weight, and it can get broken in strong winds.  I wonder if giving it more sun, or less water, may help this.  I don't want this tree to get too tall, so I aggressively prune it after fruiting.  That seems to solve this problem. 

I am considering planting this tree in my chicken's run with some wire protecting the base.  If I do this the chickens can eat any fruit that is dropped, and there is a lot of fruit over the season!  The chickens can also eat mulberry leaves that are lower down.  Mulberry leaves have an impressive nutritional composition, and are readily eaten by my hens.  Studies show mulberry leaf can replace up to 10% of bought feed without reducing the number of eggs laid. 

Non-staining white mulberries

The lavender fruiting white mulberry is another great tree.  This one is not growing in good soil, where it is far too dry, yet it is a real survivor.  

This one is growing behind my fence out near a footpath and the road.  People walk past this, yet very few ever take any berries.  I doubt many people know what these berries are as they are light in colour, and the few who do recognise them may not realise it is ripe as it is light coloured.  This tree is far too large to net, and birds take many berries.  

This year there are more berries than ever before.  This tree is very productive.  I have no idea how many berries were stolen by birds, or how many my kids ate, but I picked many bowls full many times over this season.  

White mulberries - very sweet

These ripen white or lavender, some individual berries are much darker than others.  The taste of this is very sweet, far sweeter than the darker fruited mulberry.  My kids love the taste of these mulberries.  I really like them, but find I can't eat too many because they are too high in sugar for me.  

I eat these until I start to feel blood sugar issues building, then I try to eat less of them.  I find it hard to limit how many I eat because they are only here for a short time each year, and they are so nice, and surely one more can't hurt...  

I am not sure why some berries ripen lighter than others.  I don't think it has to do with sunlight.  Some of the mulberries are half light and half dark.  While this really doesn't matter, I still find it fascinating.

Mulberry, half dark half light

White Mulberry

The white shahtoot mulberries are not well suited to my climate.  This tree does ok here, but needs a lot of extra water, and parts of it die back each spring for unknown reasons.  The berries are very long, normally a little over 10cm long, this year they were far shorter than normal.  

Normally this tree produces a lot of berries, and this year was no exception.  Last year it got burned back badly by a late frost and didn't really fruit at all.  This year it produced more fruit than ever before.  I don't know if it has enough leaves for the amount of fruit it produced.  

While the taste of these berries is incredible, they do not taste much like regular mulberries.  When ripe they taste like honey ripened apricots, they are amazingly sweet.  I am told they dehydrate well, but have not tried this yet.  My kids love the taste of these shahtoot berries, as do I.  I find them a bit high in sugar and have to limit the amount I eat otherwise I get blood sugar problems.  Again I find it hard to limit these, because they taste so great.  

The white mulberry leaves are good vegetables, and can be used to make something that tastes surprisingly like green tea, I have not tried to eat shahtoot leaves.  They should do much the same job, but seem a little thicker so may need to be picked a little younger.  

I am tempted to get a red shahtoot, these are meant to have more mulberry flavour.  They are also meant to be less cold hardy, and I don't have much space to fit in another tree, so I may never grow one of them.  

White shahtoot mulberries

I don't think it is any surprise that I love mulberry trees.  I think they should be more widely grown.  If I had room for only one fruit tree, a mulberry would be high on the list of the few I would consider growing.  

Mulberry trees are like a vegetable garden on a trunk.  They produce ample nutritious leaves which can be cooked as vegetables or used to make tea or fed to animals, and they produce an abundance of berries which taste incredible yet are too soft to ever be found at markets.

Given how low maintenance mulberry trees are, and the amount of delicious berries they produce is nothing short of incredible, I am surprised I don't see more of them in people's gardens.  

Mulberries - I love them

I do have some extra mulberry trees I grew from cuttings.  At this stage I am not selling them (other than a few plants locally) as postage would be an issue.  Given these things can easily grow from pencil size to more than 6 feet tall in a season, perhaps I should sell small rooted cuttings over winter while they are dormant.  

If I ever do sell mulberry trees, they will be listed on my blog along with everything else I am selling that month, the details will be updated on my for sale page.  

Staghorn fern from spores

I've always liked the look of staghorn ferns Platycerium superbum.  The first one I ever saw was when I was in high school, someone had one on their front verandah, that thing was massive.  I asked about them at the local plant nursery, and was told they could not get one and even if they could it would be too expensive. 

I saw a few massive staghorn ferns in the wild while I was studying at university.  They were perched high up in trees in a rainforest, and were an incredible sight.  

I really wanted to buy one so I could grow it at home, but I was renting and moving house often, so never looked into getting one back then. 

Baby staghorn ferns 

When I was in my early twenties I was rock climbing and found a tiny plant I thought was a staghorn fern.  It had a shield frond about the size of a twenty cent coin.  At the time I didn't know anything about them, so I carefully scraped it off the cliff and brought it home.  This wasn't a good thing to do, I should have left it where it was.  I regret taking that plant, but I was young and stupid at the time.  

It was a long time ago and I don't remember exactly what I did, I think I initially grew it in a pot of soil or moss.  The plant grew well, and I mounted it on a small piece of wooden lattice.  It grew, then produced pups, which I was not expecting.  

Back then I wondered what I was doing wrong to make it divide rather than growing into a single large plant.  At the time I didn't know that there were several species of Platycerium ferns, and this one was an 'elkhorn' rather than the 'staghorn' that I wanted.  

I had that fern for a few years, it grew into a large thriving clump of plants, and I eventually gave it away before moving house.  

I know more about these ferns now, there is some confusion over common names, which is why it is important to look at the binomial name rather than the common name.  

Staghorn fern sporelings

Baby Staghorn ferns in peat pellet

In Australia, the Stag horn fern (Platycerium superbum) produces large plants and does not produce offsets, it can only be propagated by spore (and maybe tissue culture).  

The Elk horn fern (Platycerium bifurcatum) produces far smaller plants that divide and produce numerous pups in large clumps, these are usually propagated by division rather than spore, but they can also be grown by spores.  

There are a few other species, some are very beautiful, but these two species are by far the most common here.  To add to the naming confusion, I am told that overseas the common names can be the opposite to this, or in some places the common names can be used interchangeably, and some other species share these common names with these two species, which is all the more reason to pay attention to binomial names and ignore common names.

I would like to grow both of these species, but I particularly want to grow a staghorn (P superbum). 

Staghorn - image from Australian Native Plant Society

Elkhorn ferns - image from Australian National Botanic Gardens

I've almost bought a staghorn fern a few times.  Sometimes I regret not buying one, other times I am glad that I waited.  They are really expensive ferns, and they look so good.  Staghorn ferns cannot be divided, so it feels like wasted money and I'm being selfish, especially if the thing dies.  Then again, if I buy one and look after it, I would have it for basically the rest of my life.  

Then I considered growing a staghorn from spore, that way I could have my staghorn and sell some extra ones to break even on cost.  While growing from spore takes a very long time, and can be very fiddly, I am up for that.  It doesn't help that I am not in their preferred climate.  

Probably the hardest part of growing a staghorn from spore is the fact that getting live spore is difficult.  Plenty of places online will sell dead spore that can never grow.  If I knew someone with a large plant I don't think I know enough to be able to collect spore at the right time, and I would likely still end up with dead spore.  Getting live spore is probably easy if you know what you are doing, but I don't know what I am doing.  

I know a guy who knows a guy that knows a lot about staghorns and elkhorns, and was able to get some live staghorn fern spores and some tips on how to grow them.  I am not sure if I will get a second chance at this, so I really want this to be successful and to end up with at least a few strong plants.  

A good number are growing strong

One way staghorn spores can be grown is by putting live spore onto a moist peat pellet.  This pellet is put in a sealed container to keep humidity high, and kept warm in bright indirect light.  

It takes months for the spore to germinate, for months literally nothing happens.  During this time it needs to be kept damp, but not too wet or too dry, and not allowed to get too hot or too cold.  If all goes well, and fungi or moss does not take over, you eventually have prothalli.  

Fern prothalli look like little liverworts or slime, they are the first stage in the fern lifecycle.  They look nothing like an adult fern, and you are not entirely sure that things have worked yet.  I spray fern prothalli with water from time to time to enable fertilisation.  

After many more months, if all goes well and things haven't got too dry or too wet or too cold or too hot and no moss or whatever has contaminated things, the prothalli grow tiny sporelings.  This is when I first know that things have probably worked and I have not spent months carefully looking after moss.

Once sporelings grow, I get very excited.  They grow reasonably fast at first, then due to competition they stop growing and do nothing.  You can see the spore were put on quite thick, and the plants are far too crowded to grow well.  For months they sit at this stage, still needing care, still threatening to be overrun by moss or fungi, and rewarding me by doing absolutely nothing other than staying alive.

That is the stage my staghorn ferns reached.  They are tiny cute baby ferns just sitting in a peat pellet crowded close together.  

I don't know what to do from here, so I divided some and planted in a seedling tray.  Some were divided into individual plants, others were left in small numbers clumped together.  I'm not sure what is best.

Staghorn fern sporelings planted out

I am pretty much making up what to do from here.  

The internet does not explain how to grow these things from spore.  It explains how to germinate the spores, and I found a few youtube videos on this.  It explains how to mount larger plants, again there were youtube videos and things explaining this step.  But I found nothing on the middle step explaining how and when to divide tiny sporelings that are unable to grow due to over crowding. 

Perhaps the sporelings need to be divided into individual plants and given their own space to be able to grow properly.  Or perhaps my rough handling will kill them and they would do better in small groups where one plant might survive and the rest will perish.  

I have no idea what is best.  So I did a bit of both, and hope something works.

Many baby staghorn ferns

Transplanting the sporelings took me a very long time.  I used my planting tweezers, and gently removed the tiny plants and tried to plant them in little rows.  Some plants were tiny and incredibly difficult to handle.  Others were still very small but seemingly more established and much easier to handle.  Hopefully I didn't damage their tiny roots too much when I divided them. 

I have well over 100 staghorn fern sporelings planted in this first tray.  Some are planted close, others further apart, hopefully I stumble across their preferred conditions and a few survive.  Planting out this took me what felt like forever, and I still don't know if any will even survive.  

Once they were planted, I gently sprayed with water to settle them in and to increase humidity.  Hopefully this helps reduce transplant shock.  

Watering this tray will be difficult, so I left a gap in one corner.  I don't know what is best, and am making this up as I go.  I will be able to spray the plants using a spray bottle, and I can tip water into that corner and it can seep underneath and water them from the bottom.  

Gap in bottom left corner for watering

From here I don't know what to do, and hope I don't kill them all.  I know adult staghorn ferns prefer air movement, but I am guessing they need high humidity when they are so tiny, so I put a clear top over the tray.  

This cover has vents I could open, for now I am leaving them closed.  This should keep humidity very high, which will either be really good or really bad - I don't know yet.  I can open one or both vents to reduce humidity, or I can remove the top.  I have options.

I put this in bright indirect light in my greenhouse.  The light there is bright enough to keep maidenhair ferns alive, but not so bright that it burns them.  I assume this is the right amount of light for baby staghorn ferns.  Again, I have no idea and am guessing.  The greenhouse is a bit warmer than the outside temperatures, so the staghorn sporelings could do ok there.  

It has been a few weeks since I divided these tiny ferns.  Some were a little bruised and the tiny roots were damaged from being transplanted.  So far most seem alive, but they aren't doing a lot of growth.  

Staghorn ferns in covered seedling tray

I also divided some baby staghorn ferns in another seedling tray.  In this one I used a 24 cell seedling thing.  I thought maybe the baby ferns would benefit from fertiliser, so I put vermicompost in the bottom of each of the cells.  Some have more, others have less, the nutrients should be able to wick up into the cell. 

I should be able to water this from below by lifting the seedling thing, and adding some water to the green tray.  This will also allow me to add diluted fertiliser or tea or whatever if needed.  

Again I wasn't sure if the baby staghorns would benefit from being separated into individual plants, or left in little clumps, so I did a bit of both.  I planted 5 individual plants into some cells, and small clumps of plants into the center of others. 

24 cell seedling tray with baby staghorn ferns

Some of the plants were tiny, others were far larger but still vey small.  I don't know which would survive being transplanted better.  Some of the tiniest ones were divided into individual plants, and some of the larger ones were divided into individual plants.  Some of the clumps were only tiny plants, others only had larger plants, while others had a mix.  Hopefully one of the combinations works and at least some survive. 

Again I covered it with the clear top with the vents closed so it would have very high humidity.  The vents can be opened if needed, or the top removed.  I have a lot of options. 

I have a sheltered place on the deck where I grow a few types of maidenhair ferns year round.  This spot gets direct sun in the early morning, and bright shade for most of the day.  The deck may be better suited to growing these staghorns, or they may be better in the greenhouse, or maybe neither will be good.  

I put this second tray on the deck.  I will keep an eye on both sets of baby ferns and move one or both of them if needed.

The ones at this end were divided into individual plants

The ones at this end were left in clumps

I had a few staghorn sporelings that I planted these in a self watering wicking pot that I normally use for African violets.  

These ones will be kept on the kitchen windowsill.  There is not a lot of light here, but it is reasonably bright, and hopefully there is enough light for them.  This will stay cooler over summer, and hopefully be a little warmer over winter.  While I wash up the dishes I will be able to keep a close eye on these ones. 

Staghorn ferns

I put a clear cup over the top to keep the humidity high, and I sprayed it with water just after planting to reduce transplant stress.  I also put a little piece of sticky tape on one end that will prevent the top from sliding off easily, but can work like a hinge if I want to open the top or prop it open to reduce humidity slightly.

I plan to keep an eye on this and move it if they start to look poorly.  At this stage I don't know if the dome will make humidity too high, or if that will be ok for now.  Hopefully if things start to go wrong I can move them or do something before they all die.  So far they look good, but it is still early. 

Clear dome to keep humidity high

Wicking self-watering pot

Baby ferns in humidity dome

I found someone on ebay selling tiny staghorn ferns in little cups for $16 plus $12.70 postage.  This seems excessive considering how tiny they are, then again a lot of work went into growing them to this size from spore, so perhaps the price is justified.  

Perhaps this is a better way to grow them.  If fungi or some contaminate gets into my seedling tray it could kill them all.  Perhaps I should have grown some in individual cups like this so that contaminates do not spread easily.  

Staghorn fern growing in little cups - image from ebay

These things are tiny for the price - image from ebay

I have a feeling that if all goes well I probably have another year until they have tiny shield fronds and start looking like tiny versions of the mature plants, and probably more time after that until are large enough to mount onto boards.  

Perhaps they will grow fast and be ready to mount far earlier, or perhaps this is not the way to grow them and they will all die.  I really don't know what I am doing with these.  Hopefully at least one survives for me long term.  

If someone who has done this before is reading my post, feel free to comment on this blog post or email me (my email address is listed on my for sale page) as I would love to learn more.  I have written this blog post about what I am attempting, and I would love to learn from an expert how this should be done.

As these things are going to take ages to reach a good size I'm still tempted to buy a larger staghorn (and maybe an elkhorn).  They are such incredible looking plants.  Or maybe I should just wait another year or two and see how this goes before spending money on a mounted staghorn.  

Perennial vegetables for sale December 2025

For sale in Australia perennial vegetables, heirloom vegetable seeds, edible herb plants, organic berry plants, and a few non-edible plants and things.  Everything has been grown organically by me. 

Maintaining my old for sale page wasn't working for me, so each month I will write a new blog post with an updated list of what I have for sale that month and include a link on my old for sale page.  I may not be able to post things all of December due to public holidays etc, but I can post during some weeks in December and can email you to let you know. 

Jekka's Thyme attracts honey bees and other pollinators

For Sale: December 2025 

Small Bare Rooted Plants $5 each (unless otherwise stated): 

Everlasting onions (currently dormant bulbs)
Pineberry strawberry 
Virginian strawberry
Atilla alpine strawberry 
Youngberry
Jekkas thyme 
Spearmint 
Peppermint
100 yr old mint
Lavender mint 
Banana mint
Native water mint
Pineapple sage
Willow herb
Lime balm 
Vietnamese fish mint
Vietnamese coriander
Variegated water parsley
Green water parsley (more vigorous stronger tasting version of the variegated form)
Asparagus (Variety: Purple) 
Sweet Violet 
Water cress 
Brahmi/water hyssop (Bacopa monnieri) 
Water pepper 
Azolla $3 per scoop
Duckweed $3 per scoop 
Tomato plant, small seedling - Zolotoe serdtse 
Tomato plant, small seedling - Snow White

Dormant bulbs or corms

Saffron corms (small - this size may or may not flower this year) $3 each
Daffodil - Hoop Petticoat   $3 each
Muscari grape hyacinth - bulbs  $2 each
Muscari grape hyacinth - Packet of seed  $4

Ancient Cultures: 

Milk kefir grains  $5 
Kombucha SCOBY  $5

Heirloom Vegetable Seeds:  $4 packet (unless otherwise stated) 

Immali corn
Superior coriander
Giant parsley
Purple hot mustard
Purple asparagus
Tomato Zolotoe Serdtse
Tomato Tommy Toe
Tomato Reisetoimate 
Tomato Woolly Kate 
Senposai
Huacatay

Non edible things:

Aloe vera $5
String of pearls succulent - plant $5, cuttings $2
String of beans succulent (from Coober Pedy) - plant $5, cuttings  $2
Red jelly bean succulent  $5 
African violet leaf cutting (Variety: New Hampshire) $3 each
African violet leaf cutting (Variety: unnamed double light blue) $3 each

Candle mold 'skep' $10 each 
Candle mold 'owl' $10 each 

Postage Prices: 

$12 for plants, bulbs, etc 
Or $3.50 if only buying seeds.  

I post the Monday after the payment has cleared. 

Azolla - tiny floating fern with seemingly endless uses

To order anything from the above list: 

Please send me an email saying what plants/seeds you would like and I will reply with prices/payment methods.  My email address will need to remove the the spaces, put @ instead of the word 'at' and . in place of the word 'dot': 

damien_beaumont at yahoo dot com dot au 

Photographs, binomial names, descriptions of plants, and notes on how I grow them, can be found on my old for sale page.  Please note my old page has a lot of things not currently in season/not currently for sale.  The only things I have for sale this month are listed in this blog post above.  

Pink Flowered Rosemary

Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) is a perennial edible herb of which there are many varieties, some are better than others.  Some are strong growers and others weak, some have upright growth while others cascade over the side of things, some have larger leaves or more fragrance than others.  They are all edible, which is nice. 

For years I have heard about a pink flowered variety of rosemary.  I considered getting one, but I already have a good, very strong growing blue flowered rosemary.  Then, not overly long ago, I found a pink flowered rosemary. 

It was a tiny and weak plant, it had pink flowers, and I figured it was worth giving it a try.  I don't tend to have great success with rosemary cuttings, but I took a cutting anyway.  This cutting survived and grew for me.  

Recently the cutting grown plant started to flower.  It is indeed a pink flowered rosemary, and it is quite pretty.  Just like most varieties of rosemary, it produces a lot of flowers.  

Flowers look white in the photo but are more pink in real life

Pink flowered rosemary

The photos don't capture the colour of the flowers very well.  They look white or very pale pink in the photos, but in real life they are far more pink. 

Rosemary is a culinary herb, all parts are edible, people mostly eat the leaves or use small sprigs in cooking.  I'm happy to say that this pink flowered rosemary smells and tastes pretty much the same as my normal blue flowered rosemary.  Perhaps the pink scent is slightly weaker, but this may be due to growing conditions.  Either way, it smells good enough for me. 

Most rosemary has blue flowers.  I grow an upright variety, as well as a prostrate variety.  They both have blue flowers.  I am tempted to graft a prostrate rosemary onto an upright one and make a weeping plant, but have never gotten around to that. 

Below are some of my blue flowered Rosemary.  Again, my photos don't capture the colour well.  

Most rosemary has blue flowers

One thing I like about rosemary is how many flowers it makes, and how long it flowers each year.  For months on end my plant produces many hundreds of flowers.  At times there are so many flowers that it is hard to see the leaves.

Many beneficial insects and other pollinators like rosemary flowers.  There are so many flowers in such a small amount of space that it takes little effort for bees to collect a lot of nectar and pollen.  

My rosemary pretty much always has bees on it as well as many other species of pollinators.  

Superb fairy wrens and other tiny birds like rosemary too.  They like to forage in shorter grass, and have thick shrubby things they can dart into when danger comes.  Larger birds can't get to the wrens when they hide in the rosemary.

Bees love rosemary

Rosemary produces a lot of flowers over a long time

Another thing I like about rosemary is that the upright varieties can grow quite tall.  I have some blue flowered rosemary growing along the edge of the chicken's run.  Even though my chickens don't tend to eat rosemary it is still beneficial to them.  

The rosemary grows tall and dense, and provides afternoon shade for my hens.  Shade is important, most animals struggle in the heat of summer.   

As it grows through the wire, the chickens brush past it and release some of its oils.  These oils can lower the amount of lice and other external parasites that bother the hens.  This will never eradicate poultry lice, but it can help to reduce lice numbers, which is a good thing.

The massive number of flowers on the rosemary also lures in various insects, which in turn attract small hunting spiders.  The chickens eat many of these insects and spiders.  While the chickens probably don't eat enough of these insects/spiders to lower the feed bill, live food is good for hens and helps them stay healthy.  

Rosemary growing along chicken run to block afternoon sun

It was very windy, these plants are normally more upright

My pink flowered rosemary is still a small plant.  It is growing a 10cm pot of soil, and would benefit from being planted somewhere with more room for root growth. 

I am not sure where to plant it at this stage, but think it will do better in the soil than it does in a small pot.  Perhaps I should also grow this near the chicken's run.  As i grows taller it can also help provide afternoon shade.  Or perhaps I will find somewhere else to plant it.  

I sometimes sell rosemary and other edible herbs and perennial vegetables and heirloom vegetable seeds through my for sale page.  Most things are quite seasonal, so my list of things for sale changes each month.  

Baby bird nest fern

Bird's nest fern Asplenium nidus are native to Australia (and a bunch of other countries).  They are lovely and undemanding plants.  

These are commonly sold as house plants.  You often see these for sale in garden shops or florists, but they rarely explain how these things will grow.  These ferns are long lived perennials, they live for decades, and they can grow absolutely huge if well cared for.  

I have a bird's nest fern that I got around 2001.  It was tiny when I got it and has moved house with me many times.  At our last house it had fronds over 6 feet long.  It declined a bit since living here, but still grows new fronds a few times per year.  Not bad for a 25 year old fern! 

My daughter saw a baby bird nest fern and thought it was super cute. 

This fern is tiny, for scale the pot is 10cm across.  

We are not in the ideal climate for bird nest ferns, but they survive here if protected.  This tiny fern is currently in my greenhouse, but may be moved to the deck soon.    

This fern's growth is a little uneven, which is pretty common and easy enough to fix.  I will rotate the pot from time to time, this should result in more even growth.  

I made this post mostly so I can look back and see how tiny this was when we got it.  It is spring here now, so this should do some fast growth.  We will see how big this can grow before winter comes.  

Nerine flower from seed

Years ago my daughter came home from pre-school with a flower bulb.  It had one leaf.  I didn't know what type of flower bulb this was.  We planted this bulb, and the leaf died.  It didn't re-sprout that season, and I worried that I had killed it.  I felt really guilty.  

The following year it grew leaves, it sent up a flower stalk that was eaten by snails, then it died back.  Again I worried I had killed it. 

Over the next few years it grew leaves.  It flowered a few times, but I never took much notice of it.  

This last year the bulb flowered, and I paid attention, it is a nerine.  The flowers were pink, and rather beautiful.

Nerine flowering

Nerine

Nerines are dormant over summer, when the leaf died it was doing what it is meant to do.  I just didn't know that at the time because I didn't know what type of flower bulb it was.  All that worry about having killed the bulb and feeling guilty was for nothing. 

The flowers look nice.  I considered cutting them to bring them in and putting them in a vase, but left them in the garden because I wanted to see if they would set seed. 

After a while the flowers started to fade.  It was obvious that some were developing seeds.  I had never grown nerine from seed before, or even seen nerine seeds before, so hoped I could save some seeds and give this a go.

Nerine flowers fading and developing seeds

I forgot about this, and when I remembered most of the seeds were gone but there were still a few seeds left.  I collected these and brought them inside for safety.  

Nerine seeds are large and fleshy.  I am not sure if they are seeds, or if they are fruits each with a single seed inside.  I am guessing that similar to choko, these are probably fruits with a single seed inside them.  

Nerine seed collected

Presumably these are nerine fruits, each with one seed inside

These seeds were left on the kitchen window sill, and ignored.  

I read that Nerine seeds germinate better on the bench than they do in the soil.  I don't know how true this is, but it seems to make sense.  I am told that nerine seeds tend to rot if planted deep in soil, and I'm told they need light to germinate.  Again, I'm not sure if this is true, but from my very limited experience this appears to be true.

I left these seeds on the window sill.  One day I noticed that two of the seeds had sprouted.  This was my signal to plant them. 

Nerine seeds germinating

Nerine seed left on bench started to germinate

I pushed the seeds gently into soil in a pot, and watered them.  I didn't want to bury the seeds, as I wanted them to have some sunlight.  

After this I placed the pot in my greenhouse where it would be protected from strong frosts.  

I was not certain what the little sprout coming out of the seeds was.  I didn't know if it was a leaf shoot and should face up, or a root and should face down.  If I had it upside down this could be bad.  

For this reason I planted the seeds on their side, the sprout could easily do what it needed to do, and go up or down as needed.  The seeds that had not yet sprouted I put with the germinating dot (not sure what this is called) on the soil surface so root or leaf could go whichever direction it needed.

It quickly became evident that the little sprout from the nerine seeds is a root.  It searched out the soil and pushed its way down.  

Nerine seeds germinating 

That little root hit the soil, then the part that was above ground began to swell.  This swelling grew and turned into a tiny bulb.  The tiny bulb then grew some tiny leaves.  

I have grown spring flowering bulbs from seed before, and all of those produced a bulb under the soil.  Watching nerines grow a bulb above the soil line was new to me.  

  

Nerine seedlings producing fat little bulbs

Nerine seedlings 

Nerine seedlings forming tiny bulbs above soil

Tiny nerine seedling bulbs starting to produce leaves

Now I have a few little nerine seedlings growing.  From here I need to grow them out, divide them when the time is right, and wait.  

I am told the seedlings can grow through the dormant season the first year to give them a head start.  Each week the little bulbs are slightly fatter, and the leaves are slightly larger, so they are doing what they should be doing.  Even so, growing nerine from seed to flower takes time.  

Nerine seedlings getting fatter bulbs and longer leaves

If all goes well they should flower in about 3 or 4 years.  I look forward to seeing what colour blooms they produce.  Presumably they will all be some shade of pink, but some may be darker and others lighter, all of them should be slightly different as they are genetically unique plants.  

To help me remember later, I recorded some important dates below:

Nerine flowering April/May 2025

Nerine seed collected 19/06/2025

Nerine seed planted when I noticed the first seeds had germinated 10/09/2025