hill.barbara•13d agoProlific Poster

Visited the arboretum in Des Moines last weekend and something felt off

I went to the Des Moines Botanical Center on Saturday to see the tropical collection. The palm house was warm and humid like always but I noticed a bunch of the smaller ferns had brown tips all over. Anyone else see that happening at public gardens? Is this a sign of bad watering schedules or maybe something else in the air?

3 comments

3 Comments

bettyh8413d ago

Noticed the same thing at the Chicago Botanic Garden last month on their fern walk, looked like a dry air problem even though the humidity was high. Did you check if the soil felt soggy or dry at the base? Overwatering can rot roots but underwatering just crisps them up quick. Could be a watering schedule issue but also might be a sign of folks not keeping the right temperature at night if the building cools down too much.

jordanm1913d ago

Wait, you really think they might be letting the building temp drop at night to the point it's stressing out tropical ferns? That would be wild if they're paying to keep the humidity high but then just letting the AC blast cold air after hours.

the_charlie13d ago

Hang on, are you sure brown tips on ferns are always a watering problem? I've been keeping ferns at home for years, and I've noticed brown tips usually come from low humidity or chemicals in the tap water, not from over or underwatering. The Des Moines place keeps humidity high, so it's probably the water they're using having too much chlorine or fluoride. Ferns are real sensitive to that stuff, and even a good watering schedule won't fix it if the water itself is bad. You'd see crispy tips spreading from the edges inward, not the whole leaf going brown from rot or dryness. My guess is the staff needs to switch to filtered or rainwater for those little ferns.