I don't grow many ornamental plants but I love maidenhair ferns, I think that they are beautiful. I have some on my desk at work to help my day be less dreary.
Years ago I heard of variegated maidenhair ferns, they sounded really nice. I looked for them and no one seems to sell them. For some reason there are very few pictures of variegated maidenhair ferns anywhere on the internet. Considering how few images I found, I started to wonder if they actually existed, or if they were just photoshopped images.
I searched for a variegated maidenhair fern (
Adiantum raddianum 'Variegata') for years. For some reason very few people own variegated maidenhair ferns in Australia. I found a few people who used to have one, and some places that used to sell them but no longer do, but getting one myself proved difficult. I spoke to a few fern collectors, all of which had fond memories of once seeing this plant, but none who currently had one. All of this convinced me that they did exist. Then I eventually tracked one down, and I bought it.
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Variegated maidenhair fern Adiantum raddianum 'Variegata' |
My variegated maidenhair fern was tiny when I got it. The little fern is growing nicely and I hope to be able to divide it and when it is larger I would love to grow some spores from it. I will be curious to see if spore grown plants are all variegated, or if only a percentage are variegated, or if none of them will display variegation. I have asked a few fern collectors and none of them seem to know.
I looked on the internet and there are only about half a dozen pictures of these elusive and enigmatic plants. This makes it difficult to decide if you really want to get one. If these things are so great why have so few people posted pictures of them on the internet? The lack of pictures made it difficult to know if they really exist. I am happy to say that variegated maidenhair ferns do exist, and they are very pretty. I think the lack of pictures is due to their rarity. I don't know why they are rare.
As you can see my fern displays diversity in its variegation. Some fronds have more white than others. Even on one frond it shows a lot of variation, some pinnules are entirely white, others are entirely green, and most will be green with splashes and stripes of green.
As so few people have ever seen these delightful ferns I took some pictures of my variegated maidenhair fern
Adiantum raddianum 'Variegata' to show the world how pretty variegated maidenhair ferns are.
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Variegated maidenhair fern Adiantum raddianum 'Variegata' |
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Variegated maidenhair fronds Adiantum raddianum 'Variegata' |
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Variegated maidenhair fern frond - some pinnules are entirely white |
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Variegated maidenhair fern pinnules range from entirely white to almost entirely green. |
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Variegated maidenhair fern needs repotting |
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Variegated maidenhair fern in a larger pot |
At this stage I only have the one small variegated maidenhair fern. I really like it. I can hardly wait for my plant to grow larger. I hope in spring to be able to divide my fern so I have more of them, even if I can split it into two I would be happy.
Eventually I hope to be able to sell variegated maidenhair ferns through my
for sale page, but that will not be for a while yet as my plant is too small to divide yet.