I recently found that a stag horn fern (Platycerium bifurcated) had germinated and begun to grow, on a water feature alongside my fishpond. At what stage can it be transplanted for growing-on? How does one separate it from the surface on which it has grown with out fatally damaging root structure?
NOTE: The plant is now at least twice as big as pictured.
You can transplant it anytime - young or older. These are epiphytes so they do not get their main nutrition and moisture from roots, but the air. So just gently prize it off and wrap the roots in sphagnum moss and attach it to its new location. Give it a good misting spray regularly until it gets established.