At first I thought A davalia Haresfoot, it that is rhizomes hanging down the front of the pot,
but looking at the foliage think it may be what we call the leather fern rumhora adiantiformis and if it is that its a wonder it hasn't split the pot!!!! a vigorous grower, and a rough pull out of as much dead as possible and a lot of watering and feeding should improve it. but if it is a leather fern it must be very root bound and probably hard to keep watered if it was mine I would be knocking it out of the pot (which will prob be hard to do ) taking an axe to it and chopping in half and making 2 pots from. a very attractive, fern when well grown. that fills a pot nicely.

Grown by the acre , as a commercial florist fern and shipped around the world for its long lasting fronds in water for florist arrangements.
Denise

Denise,

I'm exhausted from reading what you would do with it haha. Axes!?! :-D Thank you for the ID; it does look exactly like the leatherleaf fern.

It's conceivable that it's been in that pot even longer. But the last folks lived here for five years and I know they did nothing with the yard. Having just watered it religiously for the last six weeks, it is looking better but I really was hoping I could chop it down. Oh well. I'll cut off the dead stuff as you suggested.

I'm loathe to put my hands in there. You should have seen how covered in webs this was....it was like it snowed. Arrrgggh.

Thank you!

I think it would be safe in the fall just to dig out a few clumps with a hand trowel. Then just fill them in with potting soil.

would be great to see a pic of it in a few months even religiously watering and some 'feeding'?? should work wonders.
Cheers Denise

Well it'll die back in the fall and not really need any water. IT's just too big for that pot.You could break the pot and just plant it in the ground or a bigger pot.

Oh my...
I've been watering this fern religiously, and have now fertilized it twice since moving into our home -- once since this post. But I've been avoiding and dreading pruning it -- not knowing what lives inside this enormous thing.

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This morning, I finally started it. After an hour, this is how far I got with my poor regular pruners (note to self: buy a damn lopper already); I haven't even done the backside.

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Uh...NOW WHAT? lol

Good news is that over the last couple of months, I had managed to rid the plant of all spiders with the jet stream. The life forms I had feared turned out to be some snails -- but nothing else.

Had no idea that underneath all of the dead stuff would be what looks like centuries worth of old stems. Cutting it down even more flat to the pot seems futile...it would obviously be stems down to the "soil" -- that is, if I assume there is any soil left in this pot.

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Moving it -- to break the pot or otherwise -- seems impossible. I pushed and pushed and it didn't budge; I suspect the roots have grown deep into the ground, which is hardly surprising and is probably the only reason this plant is still alive and putting out new growth.

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And the new growth, shockingly, is gorgeous.

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So I guess my question is -- is cutting all of these dead stems back to the soil is worthwhile, or no? Or should I just leave it as-is and just finish the backside?

In brighter news, from my patio, this potted plant now begins to resemble one of those huge sago palms sitting in a pot....

Hi to all, now thats looking much better, but it has nowhere else to grow as you said there probably isn't any soil left, and I omitted to say in my first reply that like the davalias and harefoots" it grows from a rhizome and the rumhora has a much larger rizhome than these and tend to go inside the pot not outside the basket etc like the hares foot.s and and is very strong, and with that amount of growth I am surprised that the pot hasn't cracked in many places and that the pot is still there. rumhora is a very showy lovely fern. and I would think that one is a lot older than 5 years. I doubt if you could pull it out of the pot, to get that out you would probably have to break the pot. and to cut it you will need a cross saw operated by two people like you do for big trees, there will be as much rhizome under the soil as there is growing on the top . without the saucer underneath it would probably have dried to too much to survive a long time ago. looking at the pot and the amount a growth stems etc, it would need to go to a wine barrel size pot where it could probably spend another 10 years or make 4 big pots out of. It is lovely in the ground and with room to grow will slowly creep along a fair area (is not a rampant fern that will fill a garden bed in a year, but free to grow may grow to 5 feet tall or more was googling for an image or rhumora rhizomnes and found this blog .http://blog.uvm.edu/fntrlst/2011/10/15/fern-surgery/.
cheers Denise

I agree, there is no other way around it then to cut it out of the pot...You can cut it all the way to the ground, I use to do that every few years on mine....but they take time to recover....I would cut it to the ground, but the pot off the soil....pull the plant out and put it in the ground...

Sledge hammer that pot. I know it's pretty but it's broken.