Microlepia strigosa var. strigosa

Today I volunteered at the NTBG McBryde garden nursery, cleaning out the overgrown ferns (palapalai in Hawaiian, a.k.a. Microlepia strigosa var. strigosa). I don't know if intentional, but this is a great job for a beginner as the live plants are extremely hardy so it's hard to do much damage.

The gardens are very exotic and beautiful and the nursery is home to all kinds of strange and unusual plants (though the ferns I worked on are quite common).  The nursery includes a hot house, and cold (slightly cooler) house, a mist room, shade and sun areas.

These small ornate feathery ferns are used extensively as ground cover in the Limahuli garden so the nursery is always producing lots of it. Working from 8am to 3:30pm (when they closed) with another volunteer we almost got through three tables or approximately 500 containers. There was a lot of variance in the effort to do one container: about half we fast (half a minute) but many took more time, probably the ones that had gone the longest. A few were so overgrown there was hardly any new growth at all in them. Counting the trays of 25 completed in the time I was there it works out to about two minutes each: I guess time flies when you are having fun.

Each container held a clump of plants in various stages of life: my job was to pull out the old dead stalks to make way for new growth, along with cleaning out any rubbish that had accumulated or, rarely, weeds. In the nursery everything is grown on crushed lava rock gravel (not in dirt) in an effort to avoid soil bacteria infections. Ferns of course bind tenaciously to the rock base and hold it in a tight mass usually. Any fern more than half shriveled went -- while many dead ones broke loose easily so required more effort or in some cases cutting with pruning shears.

One nice practice at the nursery is that all tools are cleaned and disinfected without water with each use. The pruning shears I used were in great condition to show for it. Here's the procedure:

1. Brush off any loose dirt.
2. Spray the tool with alcohol mist.
3. Scrub with a rough sponge.
4. Wipe off alcohol with a clean rage.
5. Lightly spray with WD-40.

Palapalai is indigenous to Hawaii but can grow aggressively; last week at Limahuli I was ripping the stuff out of a rock walled garden feature it had taken over. I expect when I close my eyes to go to sleep I will see clumps of fern after a good seven hours.