6 minute read
Fascinated by Ferns
Story and photos by
Rhonda Fleming Hayes
Native ferns evoke nostalgia, charm and cool.
Venture through the vine-covered arch into Susan Warde’s garden in St. Anthony Park on a hot summer day and the temperature seems to drop 20 degrees. Is it all in your head? Partly it’s the high, dappled shade of tall trees overhead, the lush plantings, the glimmer of water from the birdbaths spotted throughout. More so, it’s the many ferns growing among the flowers; they offer psychological AC to the visitor.
For Susan, who is a poet as well as a gardener, the appeal of ferns is both nostalgic and aesthetic. When she was a child, her parents’ cabin in upstate New York was perched atop a fern-covered hill. The scent of crushed ferns still evokes that time for her.
“I love their fantastic foliage,” she says, “often almost like fractals, and the way their fiddleheads unfurl so promisingly.” She also points to their ancient lineage, evolving millions of years before flowering plants. Ferns are one of the oldest living plant groups, pre-dating dinosaurs. They produced oxygen that paved the way for more life forms.
Not a Fern Garden
Susan’s fascination with ferns started in graduate school. A student of plant biology, she took a course in fern biology at the University of Minnesota biological field station at Lake Itasca with Herb Wagner, an authority on the systematics and evolution of ferns. “It was absolutely exhausting and one of the best times,” she says.
When Susan and her husband, Robert, bought their home, it had a foundation planting of ostrich ferns. It was a few years until she dared plant other ferns in the then-mostly-sunny yard. Over the years, the garden has gone through changes as trees have come and gone and hardscape has been added, with sun and shade switching places at times.
“I don’t have a ‘fern garden,’ ” she says. “They’re integrated everywhere especially in the back which has a rather woodland feel, but they’re abundant in the front, too. They can be small and subtle, tucked into little spaces, or tall and dramatic, making a statement.”
Refining her plant choices through the years, avoiding orange and red blooms, and opting for a palette of pinks and yellows sets a calm scene. Along with the ferns, deep beds filled with lilies, iris, astilbe, meadow rue, coralbells ( Heuchera ) and foam flower ( Tiarella ) occupy the shadier areas while brighter blooms of phlox, peonies and rudbeckia flourish in sunny pockets. Hydrangeas, hostas and Korean maples anchor these beds that surround a swoop of lawn. Golden Japanese forest grass adds texture and contrast in strategic spots.
Susan recommends employing ferns as a complement to plants with bolder foliage like hosta and iris. She adds that “ferns also supply a sort of visual relief to the generic leaves of coneflower, phlox and rudbeckia.”
Favorite Ferns
Out of over two dozen mostly native fern species she grows, Susan’s favorite is the Japanese painted fern. She especially loves the silvery ones. Coming in second is narrow-leaved spleenwort ( Diplazium pycnocarpon ) for its geometric aspect. And then she asks, “Who doesn’t love maidenhair fern?”
Susan doesn’t hesitate to move plants around her garden until they find their happy place, and the ferns are no exception. Ferns are easy to grow—some are too easy, like ostrich fern (a “thug”) and sensitive fern that she weeds out when they get too successful. Lots of baby Japanese ferns and bulblet ferns pop up everywhere on their own; she moves them to where she wants them. Others like lady fern, beech fern and maidenhair increase gradually. She divides narrow-leaved spleenwort every couple of years. Some ferns do surprisingly well in part sun if they receive adequate water. She never fertilizes them. She admits to a few failures, mostly with native fern species that she feels probably weren’t suited to her particular garden conditions. While she seeks out unusual and different species, she has found that pushing the zone hasn’t worked for her, so she sticks to proven USDA Zone 4 ferns.
Harking back to her plant biology background, she propagated one fern species from spores collected on a trip to Minnesota’s North Shore. She shook the spores of beech fern ( Thelypteris phegopteris ) into a small scrap of paper and took them home. She started them in moist potting soil in a container similar to a petri dish. The result was all of these “adorable little ferns.”
To this day, when she and Robert go hiking on the North Shore, they look for ferns growing in their native habitat. When they do, Robert, who takes notes about their trips, will mention in them that it was a “good fern hike.”
Ferns to Grow
Ostrich fern (Matteuccia struthiopteris)
Easy to grow, in sun to partial shade, medium to wet soil, reaches 4 feet tall. Will spread vigorously. In early spring, the curled fronds or fiddleheads are prized by foodies. Provides cover for birds.
Cinnamon fern (Osmunda cinnamomeum)
Known by its stiff cinnamon-colored fertile fronds (those with spores) that emerge in early spring turning a distinctive brown. Grows in partial to full shade, medium to wet soil. Grows 2-3 feet tall.
Maidenhair fern (Adiantum pedatum)
Delicate fronds with black wiry stems give it a graceful, airy look. Hardy to zone 2. Grows in partial to full shade, medium to wet soil, compact size at 2 feet tall, spreads by rhizomes.
Bulblet fern (Cystopteris bulbifera)
Unique because of the beadlike bulblets that grow on the undersides of the fronds. In its native habitat it grows in moist, shaded soil, often among rocks. It adapts well to similar conditions in the garden.
Narrow-leaved spleenwort (Diplazium pycnocarpon) Also known as glade fern. Erect habit with long arching fronds with 20-40 alternately arranged pinnae giving it a geometric appearance. Grows in medium soil, partial to full shade, 2-3 feet tall.
Japanese painted fern (Athyrium niponicum)
The only nonnative on this list. A small but mighty beauty, with foliage that ranges from silver to burgundy. Easy to grow in partial to full shade in moist soil. Other gorgeous cultivars are ‘Ghost’, ‘Burgundy Lace’ and ‘Branford Beauty’.
—R.F.H.
Minneapolis-based Rhonda Fleming Hayes is a longtime contributor to Northern Gardener.
