My comment has a bit of spoiler so I recommend reading his entry first!
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Wow! Really excellent story! Great info and pics! It was very interesting and entertaining to read about your Platycerium's successes and setbacks. I kept thinking that the "reveal" would be that your Platy was finally killed by an exceptionally cold winter. So the suspense had me sitting on the edge of my seat.
Several years back, thanks to Craigslist, I got a really great deal on an overgrown NOID Cattleya. I divided it and ended up putting divisions on around a dozen different trees. All the divisions quickly established and grew quite well. Each year they all flowered. Then a few years later... my garden got hit by a freeze and around half of the divisions were killed. Some of the causalities were only a foot away from survivors.
This exceptionally cold event confirmed my number plant rule... don't keep all my eggs in one basket. Hedge my bets! No two locations in any garden are going to provide the same exact amount of protection. Every garden has an incredible variety of microhabitats. So if it's a plant that I'd be sad to lose, then I endeavor to maximize my chances of success by hedging my bets.
With this in mind, whenever I share divisions of cherished plants with friends... I be sure to let them know that I'm not being nice or generous or altruistic... I'm simply insuring my plant!
Sharing is caring? Sharing is insuring! So it's a good idea to cultivate a network of strategically situated plant friends! Heh.
Of course for plenty of plant enthusiasts a primary goal is to have an impressive specimen. Which is fine... if the plant has already been adequately insured. But with plenty of plants it's easy enough to propagate them from seed/spore. Just sprinkle some Platy spore on some wet floral foam in a pot... place the pot in a zip lock bag, set it by a window and voila! Your Platy's insured!
The benefit of propagating from seed/spore is that the apple might fall far from the tree in the direction of greater cold tolerance. Progress is a function of difference.
Here's a pic of the Cattleyas a few years ago...
And a relevant quote from the father of modern economics...
When a great company, or even a great merchant, has twenty or thirty ships at sea, they may, as it were, insure one another. The premium saved upon them all, may more than compensate such losses as they are likely to meet with in the common course of chances. - Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations
