Crispy Wave Fern 4”

Bring some nature into your home with the Crispy Wave Fern! This 4” plant is a great option for a low-maintenance, easy to care for houseplant that will keep your home feeling fresh and vibrant. With minimal effort, you can enjoy the timeless beauty of a Crispy Wave Fern.

Soil
As an epiphyte, Crispy Wave fern grows between the branches of large trees or between large palm fronds, feeding on decomposing leaves and other forest detritus. In your home, it will grow happily in the mix of organic compost, pine bark, coarse sand, and/or perlite.

The coarse matter in the soil ensures sufficient aeration for the roots and the drainage of excess water. The organic matter provides nutrients and consistent moisture. A commercial soil mix for succulents or cactus will do well too.

The key to providing your fern with just enough water is that the soil mix is well-draining but it retains moisture consistently and does not dry out. Make sure that the pot your fern grows in has a drainage hole.

You can plant your fern in a fairly small pot but if you want it to grow large, use a large pot and watch it slowly grow into a forest giant five feet tall.

Watering
The Crispy Wave Fern needs evenly moist soil at all times but it should never be soggy. Soil that is wet to the touch retains too much water and can cause roots to rot.

A short period of dry soil is not going to hurt it as long as it is not too long and it does not happen often.

Keep an eye on your fern by touching the soil frequently and water it regularly to ensure it has all the water it needs.

Choosing the good, well-draining soil will ensure that it retains just the right amount of water.

Use room-temperature water. Cold water might shock the plant. Sometimes the shock can cause some leaves to drop.

It is important to use filtered or rainwater. Tap water contains fluoride and other minerals that can accumulate in the soil and burn the roots.

It is difficult to establish a strict watering schedule for your Crispy Wave fern. Touch the soil frequently to make sure it does not dry out. Water thoroughly but make sure the excess water gets drained out through the drainage hole.

Light
Your Crispy Wave fern normally grows in the shade of large trees, getting only the filtered, indirect light.

Try to provide the similar light: bright to medium bright indirect light, ideally from the window with northern exposure.

Do not expose your fern to direct sunlight, or the leaves will burn. If you do not have a choice and all your rooms get too much light, shade them with light curtains or place your fern behind another large plant.

Temperature
As a tropical plant, your Crispy Wave fern likes to be consistently warm. The ideal temperature ranges between 60 and 72°F .

Avoid sudden changes in temperature that might shock your plant. Do not let the temperature drop below 55°F or above 100°F. Try not to keep your fern near a direct source of heating or cooling or near a drafty window or door. The consistently right temperature is, together with humidity, the key to making your fern thrive.

Humidity
Maintaining high humidity in the room where you keep your Crispy Wave fern is absolutely crucial to keeping it healthy.  The ideal humidity should be between 60 and 90 percent.

If you have a humidifier, you can maintain the humidity under control. If not, you can increase humidity by placing the pot on top of the pebbles in the tray filled with water.

Placing together a bunch of plants that like high humidity will create a micro-climate and benefit all of them. Make sure that there is enough air circulation between them to avoid common house plant pests that also love humid, hot air.

Crispy Wave fern is one plant that really loves its leaves misted. Misting is not enough to ensure proper humidity, but will make the plant happy, especially in the winter when the house is heated and the air is normally dryer. This is also the time when the fern is not growing vigorously so you are not watering it as frequently as usual, so it is not getting enough water that way either. Spray your fern a few times a day.

Fertilizer
Crispy Wave fern does not need much fertilizer, especially if you planted it in the compost mix.

Nevertheless, it would benefit from a monthly feeding during the growing season, from April to September.

Use a liquid 24-8-16 all-purpose fertilizer diluted to half its recommended strength. Do not fertilizer during the winter, when the growth of your fern slows down.

Repotting
You will know it is time to repot your Crispy Wave fern when it starts toppling over and it totally overgrows its pot. It also means that there is no much soil left and it is time to refresh it.

Choose a pot one size larger than the previous one. Take your fern from its old pot and shake off the old soil.  Place it in the new pot and fill it all around with the fresh soil mix, the same coarse mix you used before.

If you want your fern to grow large, you can pot it in the larger pot and give its roots the space to spread. Keep in mind that the large pot is not going to help if your fern does not get high humidity.