States of emergency declared as Cyclone Cook bears down on New Zealand

[canetoad]

16. Sad about the storm

You're right, they are not terribly hardy plants. I have five or six youngish tree-ferns in the back yard, grown from cuttings from a friend's big old tree fern.

I'm not sure of the biological process, but at some stage the mature plants form new little sucker-like things at the end of their fronds, much like a spider plant. I gathered some of those and planted them and two years later they are doing well.