Julianne introduced Rod Noonan who is a Committee member for the Royal Horticultural Society, the President of the Williamstown Garden Club, and a member of Sunshine, Footscray and Keilor Garden Clubs.
Rod’s specialties are Elk horns and tomatoes; he has lived in Newport near the power station for 30 years. Rod was a consulting engineer during his working life and remains involved with the Institute of Engineers.
Rod had brought along several impressive Elks, which he mounts himself. The ferns start out as tiny plants, which are inserted into the parent plant with tweezers, using a sharp knife to make a slit. They grow slowly in Melbourne’s climate.
Rod had worked for BHP in Borneo, where there were colonies of elks flourishing in separate areas. The difference between stag horn and elk horns – stag horns are singular plants while the elk horns reproduce themselves. The stag horns are difficult to grow and consequently expensive. Healthy plants show new growth and plants can be tidied up by removing spent parts.
Rod had sourced his boards through recycling you can use red gum or treated pine, cut to A4 size. To remove the plant from its original board use a knife, sliding the blade behind the part you want to remove. Rod uses a template, which is attached to the centre of the board with coat hanger wire, bent to provide support for the plant. A chisel is used to provide ridges to catch and retain water behind the plant. Attach a length of chain to the top of the board to hang the plant at eye level – a south wall is the best location. Rod places a handful of coir mixed with mulched plant debris on top of the template and nails the plant into place, securing it with several wires pulled tight.
Insects can be a problem – the stag horn beetle, which looks like a brown or grey ladybird, will kill the plants and needs to be sprayed with Yates Maverick spray, applied to the entire plant.
The elks don’t need to be fed with fertiliser, just use banana peels or lettuce tucked behind them. Water in the hot weather, but too much water makes them go brown.
