Four More Staghorn Ferns - Projects and Valentine's Day Gifts - February 2022

After experiencing the joy of mounting our first Staghorn Fern on a board that I shared yesterday, I decided that I was going to do another one and give it away as a Valentine's Day present to my Mom.  So, one evening after work last week, I ran out to Home Depot.  Now, we live in a spot where there's a "close" Home Depot.  That's the one I normally go to on most occasions.  It is a normal HD in terms of size and inventory.  But, we also have two other Home Depots that are *pretty* close.  Like a couple of minutes further away - but in different directions.  One of those other Home Depots is one of their MASSIVE stores.  I don't know if you've been in the B I G Home Depots, but some of them are just bigger than others.  And that means that the garden center is usually bigger than most.  

Because I KNEW what the inventory was of my "normal" Home Depot was (in terms of Staghorn Ferns), I figured...why not run to the large one.  It was just a few minutes further away (in a different direction), but maybe they'd have a better selection of Staghorn Ferns?  If they didn't have any, I knew I could just run back to the store I normally shop at and - worst case - I'd have wasted twenty minutes. 

So, imagine my surprise when I walked into the store and saw a rack of Staghorn Ferns.  That were not just bigger and had better elk-like fronds than the one I had just bought a few days earlier.  But, these were bigger and better than the one that I've had in our house for almost a year.  I bought that initial six-inch one - in March of 2021 - for $9.98.  And I bought the small 4" one that I mounted yesterday for $5.98.  

These new ones at the 'big' Home Depot?  They were just $6.88.  And came in a six-inch diameter plastic hanging basket.  

I grabbed one.  Then, I grabbed three more.  Eeeek.

They're all AWESOME.   Below is a look at one of the shield fronds - which is WAAAAY bigger than what my current Staghorn has after ten months:

Here, below, is the price tag.  They bill it as a "houseplant hanging basket".  For $6.88.

I mentioned that these $6.88 fern were not only bigger/better than the small one, but also the Staghorn Fern that I've been nursing for almost a year.  Here, below, is a side-by-side comparison.  

On the left, a Staghorn Fern that started in a six-inch nursery pot and has been growing for 11 months. Paid:  $9.98.  

On the right, one of these new Staghorn Ferns.  Paid $6.88.  

You're probably wondering:  what the heck are we going to do with all these Staghorn Ferns?  The first thing I'm going to do is to mount them.  But, by the time you're reading this, a few of these will already be gone:  given away by the kids as Valentine's Day presents.  I'll share some photos of how we mounted them and what they looked like before we gave them away.

I said it before and it is even more true now:  Ferns are my love language.