Florida Gardening: Australian Tree fern problem, 3 by jwolff30

jwolff30 wrote:
This tree fern has been prolific. I had some guys clean up this bed, and since then, it looks like this. with picture with some white mold on the stem. it has not put out a new shoot in 2 months, which is very unusual for it. It is about 8 years old. I would hate to loose it.

What should I do?. What is this funny "head" thing on the top of the plant. Is this a reproductive thing for this plant.? I have two nearby tree ferns, in the same bed, with the same clean out, that are doing beautifully!

First two pictures are of the nongrowing tree fern. The last picture is one of the nearby green stemmed growing tree fern.