Complete Guide to Squirrel's Foot Fern Care and Growth

The Sweet Spot

An east window with the pot right at the glass is close to perfect. An hour of soft morning sun brings out the gloss on the fronds, and the rest of the day stays bright without heat. North windows work year round, and a south or west room needs the plant four to six feet back or behind a sheer curtain. You have it right when the rhizome tips keep advancing across the pot rim. See our light guide.

Too Little Light

In a dim corner the fern does not die, it just stops being interesting. The rhizomes slow to a crawl and the fronds come up thinly spaced, so instead of a dense mat you get a few lonely stalks along a bare foot. More than seven or eight feet from a window, move it closer or add a grow light on a ten hour timer.

Too Much Light

Direct afternoon sun through glass bleaches the fronds to a dry tan within a day or two. The rhizomes suffer more quietly: strong sun dries their surface hairs and the exposed feet shrivel even when the soil below is damp. A spot fully shaded in December can catch two hours of low sun in March.

Watering Frequency

Water when the top inch feels dry while the layer beneath is still faintly damp. In a warm bright room that lands around every five to seven days, stretching to every ten to fourteen in winter. A mounted or kokedama plant may need attention every two or three days in summer. A moisture meter helps if you struggle to read a bark-heavy mix by touch.

How to Water

Water the mix, not the fur. Pour slowly around the edges of the pot until water runs from the drainage holes, then tip out the saucer. Bark sheds water if you pour too fast, so go around twice rather than dumping a jug in one spot. Water sitting overnight in the rhizome hairs gives mealybugs a place to breed.

For a mounted plant or moss ball, dunk it in room-temperature water for two or three minutes until the bubbles stop, then let it drip dry before rehanging.

Signs of Trouble

Underwatering shows first in the rhizomes, which feel hollow under the fur, followed by fronds browning from the tips inward. Overwatering runs the opposite way: fronds yellow from the base, the mix stays wet for over a week, and the undersides of the rhizomes turn soft and dark where they touch soil. Soft rhizome is the emergency, and it means unpotting today. See our watering guide.

What the Soil Needs

Drainage comes first. If you squeeze a handful of the wet mix and it holds as a dense clod, it is wrong for this plant. You want visible chunks and air gaps, with just enough fine material to hold light moisture between waterings. Slightly acidic is ideal, roughly pH 5.5 to 6.5, which most bark and coir mixes hit naturally.

DIY Soil Mix

Two parts fine orchid bark, one part coco coir, one part perlite, and a handful of chopped sphagnum if your home runs dry. The bark gives the structure, the coir carries the moisture, the perlite keeps everything open. A little horticultural charcoal helps in a pot that will sit undisturbed for years.

Pre-Made Options

A bagged orchid mix is the easiest shortcut, straight from the bag or softened with a third coco coir. A general fern or aroid mix works once you cut it with an equal volume of orchid bark and perlite. Skip anything labelled moisture control. More in our soil guide.

When and How Often

Feed once a month from April through September, while new fronds are unrolling, and stop entirely from October to March. Skip the first two months after a repot, since fresh bark and coir carry enough to be going on with. Always feed onto damp mix, or the salts sit against dry roots and scorch them.

What to Use

A balanced liquid houseplant fertilizer at a quarter of the label strength is all this plant wants. Something in the 10-10-10 or 20-20-20 range is fine, as is dilute seaweed. For a mounted plant or moss ball, a very weak foliar feed works better than trying to soak nutrients into moss. Our fertilizing guide and fertilizer roundup go deeper.

Over-Fertilizing Signs

A white salt crust on the bark or pot rim is the earliest tell, scorched brown tips on fresh growth the second. Bark holds salts more than you would think, so flush the pot with three pot volumes of plain water every few months while you are feeding.

Ideal Range

Aim for 60 to 75°F (16 to 24°C) through the year. Growth stops below about 55°F (13°C), and a brief dip toward 45°F (7°C) is survivable if the mix is on the dry side, though cold plus wet is a rot sentence. Above 80°F (27°C) the fronds transpire faster than the rhizomes can resupply and the tips brown even in damp mix.

Drafts and Heat Sources

A radiator is the classic winter problem, not because of the warmth but because of the dry air pouring over exposed rhizomes, which dry far faster than potted roots. Air conditioning vents are worse, since they deliver cold and dryness together. Move the plant before the heating comes on in autumn, not after the fronds start browning.

Ideal Humidity

Fifty to sixty percent is the comfort zone. It holds up perfectly well at forty, where a lot of homes sit outside winter, and only browns at the frond edges below about thirty. A cheap hygrometer tells you whether you have a humidity problem or a watering problem, since the two look almost identical on the fronds.

Easy Humidity Boosters

A room humidifier is the only method that genuinely moves the reading in a dry winter home. Beyond that, grouping plants lifts the local air a few points for free, and a bathroom with a decent window gets you steam twice a day. Our humidity guide has the full picture.

Mounted Plants Need More

On bark or as a kokedama, humidity stops being optional. With no reservoir of damp mix buffering the plant, a mounted specimen in a thirty percent room dries out between dunkings and the rhizomes shrivel. Mount it in a bathroom or near a humidifier.

Spores Instead of Flowers

Turn a mature frond over in late summer and look along the outer edge of the little leaflets. You will find tiny cup-shaped structures tucked just inside the margin, each holding a cluster of spore cases. Davallia sori sit in these neat cups rather than as open dots, a handy family trait for confirming what you bought.

Spores or Scale?

New owners find those brown bumps and reach straight for the pest spray. Sori appear only along the leaflet margins, in the same repeating pattern on every mature frond, and never on the rhizomes. Scale insects scatter at random, prefer stalks and rhizomes, and lift off with a fingernail. Sori will not budge.

The Rhizomes Are the Show

What you get instead of flowers is the reason people buy this plant. The rhizomes creep over the pot rim, then over each other, building into a knotted mat of furry feet that improves for years.

Davallia trichomanoides, the True Squirrel's Foot

The subject of this guide. Slim rhizomes, roughly the thickness of a finger or less, wearing dense russet-brown to grey fur that gives them their animal-paw look. Fronds are small, triangular, glossy dark green, and cut three or four times into fine leaflets. You will also see it labelled Davallia bullata, an older name applied loosely across several small Davallias. Treat the care as identical.

Davallia mariesii, the Japanese Ball Fern

Sold under the squirrel's foot name at least as often as the real thing, and a fine plant to end up with. Its rhizomes are paler and it drops most of its fronds over winter, reflushing in spring, which alarms first-time owners. This is the species behind the traditional Japanese shinobu-dama moss balls.

Telling It From a Rabbit's Foot Fern

This is the mix-up that matters, because both plants sit side by side in garden centres. Compare the feet: a Rabbit's Foot Fern (Davallia fejeensis) has thicker rhizomes wearing pale silvery fur, and its fronds grow larger and more open at a foot and a half or more. Care is close to identical, so a mislabel is not a disaster.

Other Furry-Footed Ferns

Davallia tyermannii, the White Rabbit's Foot, has the whitest fur of the group, and Davallia solida is the odd one out with broad leathery fronds instead of lace. The Bear's Paw Fern (Aglaomorpha meyeniana) belongs to a different genus, with chunky paws several times the thickness. That is the one to get for the furry rhizome effect at a larger scale.

When to Repot

Every two or three years, in spring as new fronds appear. The signals are a mix broken down into dark crumbs instead of bark chunks, or water running straight through without wetting anything. A crowded surface is no reason to repot on its own, since that mat of feet is the whole point. See our repotting guide.

Choosing a Pot

Wide and shallow beats deep and narrow. A bulb pan, a shallow bowl with drainage, or a hanging basket suits a plant whose roots stay near the surface and whose rhizomes want room to run sideways. Go up one size only, since a deep pot of wet mix under a shallow root system is how rot starts. Unglazed terracotta helps the mix dry between waterings.

Step-by-Step Repotting

1. Water the day before so the root ball holds together and slides out cleanly.
2. Ease the plant out by the root ball, supporting the rhizome mat with one hand.
3. Shake off loose old mix and trim any dark, soft roots with clean scissors.
4. Set the plant into fresh mix at the same depth, so every rhizome lies on top of the surface as before. Tuck none of them under.
5. Water thoroughly, then keep it bright, shaded, and slightly more humid than usual for a fortnight. If a rhizome will not stay put, pin it down with a bent paperclip rather than pressing it in.

When and How to Prune

Remove browned or yellowed fronds whenever you notice them, cutting each at the base of its own stalk with clean sharp scissors. Do not trim a half-brown frond to neaten it, because the cut edge browns further and the frond dies back anyway. Take the whole thing and let the plant put its energy into the next one.

Never Cut a Healthy Rhizome

The rhizome is the plant, and every future frond comes from it. Cut one only when you are taking a propagation piece. If a rhizome has grown somewhere awkward, turn the pot rather than removing it. A rhizome that dies back on its own turns dark and hollow under the fur, and that part can be trimmed away.

The Winter Shed Is Not a Problem

If your plant drops a large share of its fronds over a cool or dry winter, resist the urge to prune hard or throw it out. Semi-deciduous behaviour is normal in this group, particularly in D. mariesii. Cut only what is fully brown and wait for spring.

Best Method: Rhizome Cuttings

Spring or early summer, on a plant with rhizomes running over the pot edge with room to spare. You want a section three or four inches long carrying two or three fronds. Skip a young plant, since taking a rhizome from a small fern sets it back a season. Our plant division guide covers the general approach.

Step-by-Step

1. Cut a firm, well-furred rhizome section with fronds attached from the parent, using sterile scissors.
2. Fill a shallow pot with damp bark-based mix and firm the surface flat.
3. Lay the cutting horizontally on top. Do not bury it, not even slightly.
4. Pin it with a bent paperclip so the underside stays in firm contact with the mix.
5. Keep it at 65 to 75°F (18 to 24°C) in bright indirect light, with the mix damp but never wet.

Roots appear from the underside within two to six weeks, and new fronds follow.

Tips for Success

Contact decides this. A rhizome hovering a millimetre above the surface sits there for months doing nothing, so pin it firmly. A clear bag tented loosely over the pot for the first fortnight speeds rooting, as long as you open it daily for air. Take two or three cuttings, since some pieces simply refuse. Spores work too, sown thinly onto damp sterilized peat under clear plastic, but take a year to give you anything.

Hanging Baskets and Kokedama

A hanging basket at eye level does the most for this plant, because the rhizomes run over the rim and keep going underneath until the container disappears inside a ball of furry feet. Kokedama takes the idea further, wrapping the roots in a moss sphere the rhizomes eventually cover entirely.

Mounted on Bark

Being an epiphyte, this fern grows happily on a slab of cork with a pad of sphagnum behind the roots and fishing line to hold it until it grips. It looks deliberate on a bright bathroom wall, and it is the closest thing to how the plant actually lives.

Shallow Bowls and Bonsai Accents

A wide shallow bowl on a pedestal shows the rhizome mat from above, the view most people never get. Bonsai growers use small Davallias as accent plants beside a tree for the same reason. Among other ferns, set it near the broad paddles of a Bird's Nest Fern or a Blue Star Fern, where the fine texture and furry feet both stand out.