Tropicals & Tender Perennials: What's Your Most Prized Plant?, 1 by rjuddharrison

rjuddharrison wrote:
For those who know me, they also know my favorite and prized plant!
Purchased at home depot in 2004 as a scraggly charlie brown tree fern (C. Cooperi) with one burnt frond, and also scheduled for the dumpster it was like one of those puppies in the store window ya couldn't resist. I planted it by the pond, and having no prior success with tree ferns, began to wonder why this one was doing so well. Turns out that it was a C. Australis, which is more cold hardy, heat hardy, more drought tolerant species which equates to more ideal for my area here in Houston. Finding this species to buy intentionally is unusually difficult. It has weathered droughts, hurricanes, hard freezes 3 days long, monsoon summers and keeps kicking. Last winter when it was so cold it lost every branch, so it was pretty much a stump, so I wrapped it in outdoor seat cushions during the cold snaps (for which there were several) and was rewarded by new fronds in the spring.
With out further adieu...meet La Fern!
rj