Did you know that there's a group of plants
that's over 360 million years old?
The humble ferns have been around all that time,
which means they've survived and, in fact, flourished,
despite all the environmental changes our earth has seen.
This is an actual fern fossil.
It's the cross-section of a tree fern,
and it was found right here in Tassie.
It's over 180 million years old,
and it's not too dissimilar to the tree ferns that we grow today.
Holding this, I literally have time in my hands.
Ferns drop in and out of favour.
And although they're quite trendy at the moment,
actually propagating them is a bit of a dark art.
Sue MacLaurin is one of just a handful
of fern growers in the country.
So, what's so special about ferns, then?
Ferns are a fascinating plant
in that they don't have seeds or flowers.
They have spores. They grow by spores.
And you can see the spore arrangement on the backs of fronds.
Inside these little... little dots here,
that are covered by a little indusium,
are sporangia, minuscule, beautiful little things
that actually look like caviar.
And within those are the spore. They're microscopic. They're tiny.
It's like mushroom dust, really.
Often, people think that it's a problem with a pest or disease,
but in reality, it's part of the reproductive cycle.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
So, can you take us through how to collect spores?
I...I can, Tino.
We're...we're here in front of this gorgeous clump of sickle ferns,
Tassie native, and... I can just show you here the...
..the little green... point out little fuzzy green lines
on the end of the...on the leaf margin, the frond margins.
And this is unripe spore. This is spore that's not ready yet.
Now, this would be a perfect one to collect.
You've got nice dark brown, sometimes even black if you have...
..good colour - that would be a... a great one for collecting.
So I'm guessing the paper bag has something to do with it.
It does. But how do we get them?
Well, we'll... we'll take our secateurs here
and we just snip off...little frond.
We put it in the paper bag.
Now, if you don't want to cut the frond,
you can actually just put your bag underneath one of the fronds
and just...on one of the... one of the ripe spore arrangements,
just scrape it with a knife.
Yep. Put it in the bag.
Give it...half a week, four or five days,
and the frond will have dried off
and the sporangia will have released its spore.
I don't have a favourite fern. I don't think I do.
I had to think about that, and there are too many gorgeous varieties.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
Welcome to the sporehouse. (LAUGHS)
We've had a chance to bring in the spores
that we collected from outside, and now we're going to separate them.
And we've got our bag of spores now
and we'll do a...we'll just do a cut straight through.
And what we're left with is a bag
of spore and spore cases.
So the yellow is the actual spore of the fern
and the brown are the cases.
We want to separate the spore cases from the spore.
We're starting to be left with just pure spore.
A few more cases there and I'm happy to go on to the next stage.
So first up, we're gonna use a... a mix.
Very...ferns like high organic matter.
So this is a... this is a mix of potting bark...
Yep.
..which is...basic potting bark with composted bark and sand,
and then the rest, about 50%, is actual pure peat.
Right. OK?
So it's nice soft, but it is fine. Feels lovely.
Yeah. Feels great, doesn't it?
And the other one we're gonna use is the...
..it's just pure peat again,
and we're using some perlite.
So with perlite, it can get really dusty.
So that's why I have a mask on today.
Don the masks. So we'll just don the mask.
So we're gonna fill up this first one.
Have a bottom bed of perlite - perfect drainage
and water-holding capacity.
Yep. We'll fill that up.
Tamp it down a bit.
It's about a third full.
Yeah, and what we want is airspace
similar to the amount of soil that we have in it.
OK, so we're gonna take some pure peat.
And, unfortunately, ferns at this stage
don't seem to like coco peat.
Right.
So we fill it up to a certain level
and then we tamp it down to make a nice firm bed.
This next one, we will...
..take our...sieved potting bark,
with sand and peat.
We'll just fill it up.
Now we're pouring boiling water into the watering can.
And by using this, it enables it to get
a much more even flow over the media.
So this is pasteurising it. Yep.
This is getting rid of...pathogens.
Like anything with fern growing...
..patience.
So just take your time and let it...
..let the water flow through.
And that's why we have the drainage holes in there,
so the media is gonna be sopping wet when we...when we sow it.
Now we need to wait maybe half an hour for it to cool down.
I will pop the lid back on.
This is to stop any spore
or any fungi or anything, any pests,
from coming in,
just even between the time that we're doing this now
and when we actually sow the spore.
Well, Tino, we've given the media a chance to cool down.
(THUNDER RUMBLES) (RAIN PATTERS)
And we've given the weather a chance to cool down too.
I'm glad we're not out there. Yes.
So, what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna take a very small amount of spore.
There's a lot in this container.
As evenly as we can,
we're just gonna shake the spore
over the media.
Can you see that falling in there? Yeah. Yeah.
As evenly as possible.
It's tempting to keep going, to make it all a beautiful yellow, but...
..there's a lot of spores in there.
A very tiny amount, we've sown it,
and that should give us space for growing.
Next thing we'll do, we'll give it its home for the next three months.
This is a really simple way of doing things
and you've got your own ready-made glasshouse.
You've got as much moisture in there as you need
for the ferns to go into their next stage,
which is a sexual stage, so...
Could you pass me the next one? Yes.
We've got an example of, let's say, one or two months later.
The spores, hallelujah, have germinated.
So these are baby Dicksonia ferns? These are baby Dicksonias.
These are the little prothallus stage.
So it's taken maybe up to four or five months
for it to get to this stage.
So, they are a little single-cell...
..usually heart-shaped...
..little plantlets.
Oh, yeah. See, single-cell.
So they sit on the...they sit on the surface of our organic matter
and they send root hairs down that...
..that bury them into the soil.
It's here that the fern starts to reproduce.
It's at this stage they turn into what we call a sporophyte,
the second part of its evolution.
So they've sent down a root. They've been fertilised.
The egg's been fertilised. And you've got your first sporophyte.
And each one of those fronds IS a separate plant.
It is, yep. Sends up one frond first.
And do they need any food?
I would suggest that...
..they don't need any food in the earlier stages at all.
OK? They're... they're self-sufficient.
They can take care of themselves.
Once they get to the sporophyte stage,
you can start watering them or misting them
with probably half-strength seaweed solution, yep.
So, Tino, we've got our little hothouse here with our sown spore.
Now, this should be put in a well-lit, warm space.
Now we're gonna look at vegetative production.
So this is Asplenium Autumn Beauty.
It's a form of hen and chicken. It's a lovely fern.
Can you see these gorgeous little bulbils on the top of the frond?
Yeah.
So Mother Nature's given this plant two ways of propagating,
and we're gonna take advantage of the bulbils on top.
You just take a little bit of a snip here.
And you've got the frond
laden with the little...
Oh, straight in? Straight...straight onto the media.
This is a me...this is a... just a regular potting bark media
with a bit of... bit of perlite in it,
and fertiliser, slow-release fertiliser.
So we just lay that on the top,
and if you can just chuck some soil on it.
Just dust it over the top? Just dust it over.
And what that does is anchor it down.
It gives the little bulbils a chance to...
..to get their roots into the soil,
and, with a bit of patience, three to four months,
you've got a nice little root developing
and you've got a number of new little ferns.
Now, because these are a little bit more established,
they don't require as much water and you can feed them?
That's exactly right. Yes. Yep. Yep.
You don't need any layer or anything top on that.
You just keep them moist and... yeah, a...a definite...
..definite...slow-release in the mix
and you can do it again half-strength.
If you've got a fancy for prehistoric plants,
then ferns are the way to go.
And as you can see, after chatting with Sue,
they're not that hard to propagate and get going.
So why don't you try it yourself?