Hurricane Fern care comes down to three things: bright indirect light, a drink once the top 3cm of mix has dried, and air that isn’t bone dry. It copes with an ordinary Australian living room better than most ferns, though a winter draught will still crisp the frond tips. Below: light, water, humidity and pet safety.
| Care need | Recommendation |
|---|---|
| Light | Bright, indirect, filtered sunlight |
| Water | Water moderately, allow the top 3cm of soil to dry |
| Pets | Not known to be toxic to cats or dogs — absent from the ASPCA plant database in either direction |
| Difficulty | Easy-going |
Easy-going, because the light and the watering are as simple as fern care gets. The one thing it asks for beyond that is air that is not bone dry.
How much light does a Hurricane Fern need?
Bright, indirect, filtered sunlight, which in a real room means a spot where you can see plenty of sky but the sun never lands on the fronds. A metre back from an east-facing window is close to ideal, and behind a sheer curtain on a north-facing wall works just as well.
Light varies by city more than people expect. A Melbourne flat in July gets weak, flat light, so the fern can sit closer to the glass than it would in Brisbane. A west-facing Perth window in January will scorch the fronds through the glass in an afternoon.
Too much light bleaches papery patches into the outer fronds. Too little shows up as nothing at all: the plant holds its old fronds and refuses to push a new one out of the centre. If it hasn’t unfurled a single frond across a whole spring, light is the first thing to change.
How often should you water a Hurricane Fern?
Water moderately, allowing the top 3cm of soil to dry between drinks. Push a finger in to the second knuckle: dry at your fingertip means water it, cool and damp means wait a few more days.
The seasonal split matters more than any fixed frequency. Through spring and summer, September to February, the plant is growing and drinking; from March it slows, and across winter (June to August) you water noticeably less. Tip the saucer out every time, because a fern in cold water is the quickest way to lose the roots.
The common mistake with any bird’s nest fern is aiming the watering can at the middle. Water pooling in the centre of the rosette rots the crown, and the crown is where every new frond comes from. Water around the edge of the pot instead.
If you would rather not guess, our 4 in 1 Smart Sensor reads moisture at root depth rather than at the surface, where mix always dries first.
Does a Hurricane Fern need extra humidity?
It likes humidity, and across much of Australia it gets enough without help. Brisbane, the Gold Coast and coastal New South Wales are humid enough that a bright bathroom asks nothing extra of you.
The awkward months are the ones with heating or air-conditioning running. Reverse-cycle heating dries a room out fast, and a fern parked in the airflow will crisp along the frond edges within a fortnight.
Two fixes, both undramatic. Group it with other plants so they share the moisture they give off, or stand the pot on a saucer of damp pebbles. Misting the fronds is fine; soaking the centre is not.
Is the Hurricane Fern safe for cats and dogs?
Our care card lists the Hurricane Fern as pet friendly, and the accurate way to put that is this: Asplenium antiquum is not known to be toxic to cats or dogs. It does not appear in the ASPCA’s toxic and non-toxic plant database in either direction, and neither does the plain Bird’s Nest Fern, Asplenium nidus, so we don’t claim ASPCA clearance for either.
Only a handful of plants in our range sit in this category, which is why this fern turns up in so many of our pet-household recommendations. That is a statement about the paperwork, not a clean bill of health: the honest framing is “safe to keep in reach”, not “safe to eat”. RSPCA Australia keeps no per-species plant list of its own and points readers to the ASPCA database, so if a pet does chew a plant, your vet is the place to start.
Potting mix, feeding and repotting
Free-draining indoor potting mix, in a pot with a drainage hole. Ferns want mix that holds a little moisture without going airless, so an indoor mix with bark or coir through it beats heavy garden soil.
If you are dropping it into something decorative, keep the nursery pot as a liner and lift the plant out to water. A Jardin Terrazzo Grey Pot suits the low, spiralling shape without competing with it.
Feed with a diluted indoor plant food in spring and summer, then stop around the end of March. Repot in spring, September to November, once roots circle out of the drainage holes.
Common Hurricane Fern problems
- Crispy brown frond edges. Dry air, a heater draught, or mix that went bone dry. Move it out of the airflow and water on a steadier rhythm.
- Bleached or papery patches on the outer fronds. Direct sun through glass. Shift it a metre back from the window or hang a sheer curtain.
- A blackened, soft centre. Water has been pooling in the crown. Water around the edge of the pot, let the mix dry, and cut away collapsed fronds.
One thing that looks like a problem and isn’t: tidy brown lines on the underside of an older frond are spore patches, not scale insects. Leave them be.
Where our Hurricane Ferns come from
Hurricane Ferns are dispatched from our Queensland nursery in their nursery pots, so the plant you see is the plant you get.
Every plant arrives with a printed care card, packed in low-waste, plastic-free packaging, and backed by our 30-day plant guarantee, which covers a plant that arrives in poor condition, not one left dry for a month. Allow typically 3–5 business days of courier transit to most metro areas after dispatch, plus packing time.
“My fronds spiral like a storm — hence the name, minus the chaos.” — from our Hurricane Fern care card
Shop the Hurricane Fern.
Hurricane Fern care FAQs
Is a Hurricane Fern the same as a Bird’s Nest Fern?
Close, but not identical. ‘Hurricane’ is a cultivar of Asplenium antiquum, the Japanese bird’s nest fern, so it is a sibling of the plain Bird’s Nest Fern rather than the same plant. The visible difference is the frond: Hurricane fronds twist and wave as they grow. Care is the same for both.
Can a Hurricane Fern live in a bathroom?
Yes, as long as the bathroom has a window. Bathroom humidity suits it beautifully, but no fern will keep pushing new fronds in a room with no natural light at all. A frosted window or a skylight is plenty. In a windowless bathroom, rotate it out to a bright room for a few weeks at a time.
Can I grow a Hurricane Fern outside in Australia?
In a shaded, sheltered, frost-free position, yes. A covered verandah or a spot under established trees gives it the filtered light and still air it wants, and in subtropical Queensland it will sit outside happily year round. Cold snaps and frost are its limit, so in Melbourne, Canberra or Hobart treat it as an indoor plant that holidays outdoors over summer.
The Good Plant Co nursery team · Last updated 12 September 2026
More from the care library: The Indoor Plant Care Library · Spider Plant care, the other pet-friendly classic we sell, and one the ASPCA does list as non-toxic.