| Description | A easy to grow compact form of the more common Asparagus Fern Sprengeri. |
|---|---|
| Pronunciation | (ass-SPAR-uh-gus)(den-sif-FLOR-us) |
| Plant Type | All Plants, Indoor Foliage |
| Hardiness Zone | 9-10, sunset 12-24 |
| Sunlight | bright to medium light |
| Moisture | Prefers evenly moist but will tolerate some dryness. If allowed to get too dry it will have a plant-tantrum and drop a massive amount of the leaf-like structures. |
| Growing Media | average house |
| Temperature | average house |
| Flowers | The flowers are: small, white, waxy, fragrant and have bright yellow/orange anthers. |
| Fruit | The fruit starts green and ripens to red. The black seeds are small to medium in size. |
| Leaves | The fluffy appearing stems are long and tapering, jetting out from the center of the plant in all directions. The leaves are really not leaves but small-flattened stems called cladodes. With age the stems will produce thorns or prickles. |
| Dimensions | As the plants gets older the roots will fill up most any size pot and the plant will push itself out of the pot. Not as fast growing as "Sprengeri". |
| Maintenance | As time goes on the plant will grow out of the pot and need to be transplanted. I have taken the pot bound plants cut an inch thick slab of roots off of the bottom, and trimmed an inch off the sides and replant. Given a little TLC, the plants have recovered. Although this plant can be cut back, it doesn't recover rapidly from this process, but many times this is a necessity. |
| Propagation | The most common way is to grow from seed. The seeds are hard and black I have germinated the seeds by directly seeding them and also soaking them over night. Both methods seem to work equally well. The seeds of Fox Tail are more expensive than sprengeri and seem to be a little more difficult to germinate. Older plants can be divided. |
| Native Site | South Africa |
| Misc Facts | Can be toxic to pets. |
| Author's Notes | I have grown this Asparagus Fern many times. One thing I learned is if it gets to dry to many times the floor will become littered with the yellow, dead leaves (cladodes). |
| Notes & Reference | #02-Exotic Plant Manual (Alfred Byrd Graf), #21-Indoor Gardening (Chicago Botanical Gardens Staff), #70-Indoor Plants (Courtuer and Clark), #158-Plantepedia (Maggie Stuckey) |
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