We’d only been in the country three months and I’d yet to find a plant store. We were enjoying lunch at a nearby diner. I’d just finished regaling Andy with my plant sagas, and voila! God really does provide. Along came a man with a large fern on his head carrying a tray of smaller plants. I relieved him of his head fern and a “tu y yo” cactus to begin my plant family.
Apparently here in the D.R., you can just pop a seed in the ground and it grows—like magic. Unfortunately, I have not experienced this phenomenon to be true. Simple ferns seem to thrive pretty much everywhere here—except my apartment.
My fern grew well for a while, then its leaves slowly began turning brown and yellow. “It’s pot constrained,” declared the experts. I bought a bigger pot with new soil. “Ferns love the sun, you must move it outside.” The sun simply turned the leaves yellow and brown faster. I began pruning the ugly stems and leaves. Maybe it’s just going through a weird adolescent stage.
Nothing worked any miracles. My fern has managed to muddle through almost a year under my care. I’ve recently started adding nutrients to the soil. Maybe chemicals will do the trick. Regardless, Hannah greatly enjoys giving our fern regular haircuts. She has permission to cut off the brown portion of the leaves—a rule she adheres to very loosely since scissors are so fun.
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