Viewing post #693486 by drdawg

Staghorns and Elkhorns are completely different plants, not even in the same family. But I know you know this, Glen. Back in the day, and that was before there were any big-box stores (other than WalMart, and they really weren't big-box), one could find "treasure" nurseries, having decades old plants that were practically unknown. That's where I got my very first staghorn fern some 40 years ago. Back then Staghorns were called Elkhorns, but I had never seen a "real" Elkhorn and knew no better. Now, since I grow both of them, I know there is a vast difference in the plants.

Those mom-and-pop nurseries, along the Mississippi and Alabama coasts, were where I started my collection of tropical plants. I found orchids, fiddle leaf ficus, rare, white bird-of-paradise, and many other wonderful plants.

Those nurseries are no more. Time, big-box stores, and hurricanes have wiped them all away.

That 20 year old staghorn became part of the family and it just killed me to separate her. But when a plant gets huge, to the tune of almost 100 lbs., well I had no choice. It took me hours to separate that plant and I ending up with 8-10 large staghorns. Most I just gave away. When I moved from the Mississippi coast in 1995, I had many specimen plants that I could not bring with me to NE Mississippi. I had no place to grow them. I just gave them to friends and to a local nursery. Hurricane Katrina wiped all that away. I don't think a single one of my plants survived. Two of my friends who had wonderful, huge sun rooms where many of my plants were housed, lost their homes, with only the concrete slabs remaining. The nursery was also completely destroyed. All that survives are a few of the small plants that I could bring with me. One was a fiddle leaf ficus, and that "mother" plant is now over 25 years old. Three plumeria that were mere small sticks when I brought them from Maui in 1985, are still with me. They, like the fiddle leaf, have to constantly be cut back just to maintain their size. All my tropical plants have to be brought inside to over-winter, so plant-size is important to me.

staghorn, Platycerium bifurcatum

Elkhorn, Polypodium grandiceps