The hot, muggy days of August are good days to lie in hammocks and turn our thoughts to cool green ferns. And September is a good time to move ferns into the garden.
Almost every garden has some spots that would be enhanced by the beauty of ferns, and gardening pleasure is sure to be sharpened by their limitless variety and possibilities for use.
Ferns in a garden are like some individuals entering a room— everyone immediately knows they are there. Though silent, they spread a sense of authority and calm.
Tall and stately vase-like forms, the intricate pattern of leaves like delicate lace, and the range of green from the deep, dark sheen of Christmas fern to the transparent chartreuse of maidenhair all have fascinated gardeners and poets from time immemorial.
In 1650, Andrew Marvell wrote of his garden: “Nor white nor red was ever seen As amorous as this lovely green.”
Yet our feelings about ferns may be primordial as well as sentimental. What secrets could ferns reveal, whose ancestors inhabited this earth 450 million years before ever man walked upon it?
Deep inside us, we may acknowledge a debt to those plants that laid down the rich resources of coal and oil and the gift of green on which all human life depends.”
Habitable Ferns
Ferns grow in almost all habitable parts of the earth, and the number of species is claimed to be from 3800 to 8000.
This wide difference does not indicate a botanical bungle but the ability of ferns to hybridize in nature and cultivation, or through polyploidy, or otherwise to create new species, sports, varieties, and variations.
Ferns go on being serene and beautiful while controversy goes on about them. The scientific names of ferns are entangled, and the common names are not always sufficiently descriptive as clues to identification.
There are about 200 species and varieties of hardy and tender ferns available in cultivation from which the gardener can select, even if occasionally he must point and say, “That one.”
Developing and Collecting Forms of Fern Species
In Great Britain, and to some extent in this country, fern hobbyists are most interested in developing or collecting forms of fern species differing from the typical, with crested, tufted, or “tessellated” fronds, sometimes so dissimilar to the species as to be unrecognizable.
The Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Brooklyn, N.Y., maintains a collection of 50 variations of Boston fern (Nephrolepis exaltata). This famous house fern was a graceful fountain of green in bay windows of the ’90s.
In the variations, the usually long and narrow once-cut fronds are wide or narrow, wavy, finely cut, tufted, crested, leathery, or lacey. (The entire collection, made by R. C. Benedict, appears in photographs in Exotica II by A. B. Graf.)
Of ferns hardy in the northeastern United States, 25 or more species and forms are available from growers; and to the eagle-eyed, species variants can be found in searches through woods and haunts.
Among the most desirable garden ferns, polypody, Christmas fern, and especially the woodferns (Dryopteris) crossbreed and give rise to so many varieties that some cannot easily be identified.
One of our most rare and interesting native ferns, the hart’s-tongue (Phyllitis Scolopendrium), now protected by law in New York State, is available from growers not only in the original form but with ruffled or wavy edges.
Garden Of Ferns
A garden of just ferns can be of absorbing interest even if it is a collection of specimens under a tree, and I would like to defend the right to it.
An impression has gone abroad in publications and lectures that a garden is “not an assemblage of plants” but a “picture” and, first of all, should be a good “design.”
The functions of the plants in the garden seem to be relegated to usefulness in being so high and so wide that they furnish a blob of color in May or October.
There is criticism of a garden of plants as plants, and such gardens have been referred to as “horticultural zoos,” as though this were reprehensible, if not obscene.
Actually, a garden should combine interesting plants (for the plants’ sake) in a pleasing and harmonious display.
It should be possible to look at the garden through binoculars both ways, the long view and the close-up. This applies particularly to a garden of ferns.
They lend themselves gracefully to the flow and rhythm of design. They can be used to soften walls and corners with feathery drapery or, in a waving ribbon, to line a path or connect one garden section with another.
Garden Fern Requirements
Although there are hardy ferns for sun or shade, except for a sunny bank of the delicate hay-scented fern, a delight to behold, the more desirable garden ferns are those which require at least partial shade, and ferns are at their most enchanting best in light filtered through leaves above.
In sanctuaries devoted to ferns, the very names suggest the natural habitat: Fern Dell in Los Angeles; Fern Valley at the National Arboretum, D. C.; Fern Gully in Jamaica, and there are many Fern Dales and Glen Ferns associated with our childhood if by now they have been swept away in the path of civilization.
In making a garden of ferns or using ferns in combination with other plants, it is best to keep these natural requirements in mind: plant out of the sweep of the wind, in the shade or filtered or dappled light, in soil soft and porous with available moisture, but not in a puddle.
If the conditions are not naturally a “Dell” or a “Dale,” they can be improvised. For example, if trees are not available, the shade of the north side of the house will do—ferns are not particular.
This makes ferns desirable even in city gardens, although they do not care for smog. If the soil is not naturally woodsy, it can be made so with the addition of leaf mold, compost, or peat moss, with some sand added for porosity if needed.
Some fern growers imbed sticks, stones, and even bones under the surface of the soil where ferns are planted to provide crevices that fine-feeding roots will seek for safety, moisture, and nourishment.
A handful of bone meal can be added to the soil mixture if the soil is generally poor. Otherwise, no fertilizer is needed, as this may force weak and flabby growth, or the ferns may grow too tall and out of character.
Moving Ferns
Ferns are best moved in September so they can become settled before winter or be moved in very early spring before growth starts.
With care, ferns can be moved at any time of year, although it is difficult to handle ferns in full leaf without breaking fronds; thus, spring or fall are more desirable times.
Dig a salad-bowl depression wider than the spread-out roots, and while holding the plant so that the crown will be level with the soil but not covered by it, gently bring the soil over the roots, no deeper than they grew.
Firm the soil over the roots with your foot and see that moisture is available until the roots are well established. A covering of leaves or pine needles (not over the crown) will act as a mulch in preserving moisture.
Vase-Forms Ferns
The vase-form ferns look majestic when growing from a single crown and planted far enough apart so the silhouette can be seen.
Although these ferns usually reach their maximum height in the first year in the garden, they do not multiply rapidly, but from time to time, over the years, they can be lifted and the crowns separated and replanted.
This is the easiest means of fern propagation. Ferns such as maidenhair, which grow from a rhizomatous rootstock instead of a crown, are propagated by breaking the rootstock into pieces an inch or longer, including an upright growing frond.
In planting these, a little trench is made in the same soft soil, deep enough to cover the rootstock horizontally 1” inch deep with the feeding roots spread out below, leaving the growing frond upright above the soil.
Other propagation methods are by viviparous buds on some species and growing from spores.
Old Fronds
In nature, the old fronds fall in a circle around the plant, furnishing a natural mulch and staking out territory to keep other plants at a distance so the fern will have room to grow.
In evergreen varieties such as the Christmas and evergreen wood fern, the old fronds persist through the winter and fall down only when new growth arises in spring.
I rather like the looks of a circle of old fronds at the base, but if they seem untidy, they can be plucked off and leaves or pine needles substituted to keep weeds down and moisture in.
Or small ground covers such as ground pine, trailing arbutus, partridge berry, or foam flower can be planted around the ferns for a living mulch and added interest.
Disease and Pest Free
Ferns are usually disease and pest free. Nothing seems to eat them, no moles nor mice, nor squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits, or deer—all inhabitants of my garden.
And smaller pests do not bother, although once in a while, some wooly aphis ( or red spiders from nearby plants may need shooing away with Black Leaf 40 or Malathion.
Ordinarily, however, sprays are more harmful to ferns than beneficial, and if used, the spray should be only half the usual strength.
In Wildflower Garden
In the wildflower garden, ferns are useful to take over after the spring bloom of those plants which, after flowering and setting seed, disappear above ground completely until next spring, as do Dutchman’s breeches and Mertensia.
Bloodroot, foam flower, trillium, and other woodland treasures appreciate the protective summer shade that the ferns provide. Wildflowers parade in great display through March, April, and May and then rest until the following spring.
Just as they fade, the ferns uncoil upward toward the light and, by June, are ready to transform the spot to cool green during the summer months.
Christmas Ferns
Christmas ferns are planted in my garden also among clumps of nearby daffodils so that the passing of the daffodils and the ripening of their foliage is hardly noticeable as the ferns arise to take their place.
Along the brook, the 4-foot osmunds, cinnamon, interrupted, and royal, with their locust-like foliage, shove their fiddleheads upward as marsh marigold blooms at their feet.
And these tall ferns can fill the place of shrubs while nursing rhododendrons and azaleas grow more slowly in the shady border.
Maidenhair Fern seems to be welcome anywhere. Its dainty, delicate lace parasol fronds combine gracefully with wildflowers and, in the corner of my cultivated garden, with a bleeding heart and fuchsias.
Compatible With Other Plants
Other plants compatible with ferns in the shady garden are begonias—the small Semper Florens, the flamboyant tuberous, or the varied rex leaves.
Round mounds of coral bells and hosta add a note of contrast in form and color with shade-loving torenia, a pretty annual.
All these plants more or less stay put and can be planted with the ferns without crowding each other out. Besides our own native ferns, others from afar can be grown outdoors.
One of the best is the Japanese Athyrium Georgianum, a 10-inch mound of handsome variegated gray-green fronds with wine-red stalks.
This exotic species was hardy here in northern New Jersey, even through all the snow and sub-zero temperatures this past winter.
Difficult Fern Names
Fern names are difficult because the common names are rarely descriptive and because scientific names are involved.
To enjoy ferns, it is not necessary to pretend to know every fern one sees unless one studies them.
A fern guide is necessary on field trips and a useful reference at home. Those by Houghton Cobb, Herbert Durand, Farida Wiley, and Edgar Wherry are the best.
For reference, use the new Britton and Brown Flora of the Northeastern United States. In addition, there are many excellent fern books of local use, such as Ferns of New Jersey by Chrysler and Edwards, Ferns of Minnesota by Rolla Tryon, Ferns of Georgia by R. McVaugh, and P. H. Pyron.
The American Fern Society has published the Fiftieth Anniversary issue of the American Fern Journal, and since one’s enjoyment of ferns is directly proportional to knowledge of them, joining the American Fern Society or subscribing to its excellent quarterly will bring big returns for its $2.50 dues. (D. Huttleston, Secretary, Longwood Gardens, Kennett Square, Pa.)
44659 by Helen Hull