Ferns Give a Woodsy Feeling
Everlasting Ferns Help Give a Woodsy Feeling
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The appeal of ferns lies in the beauty of its form, texture, and the various shades of subtle foliage color. They are truly an attractive plant. Ferns multiply rapidly. They remain lovely all summer. But being perennial, they return year after year.
The joys and adventures of growing ferns are countless. Many ferns thrive in dense shade where few other plants will live. Some ferns are evergreen. Most are easy to grow, requiring literally no care and upkeep. It’s seldom when ferns are seriously bothered by insects or diseases. Often where you have ferns you will also attract birds. They like the furry down that covers the young fern fronds. It makes for an ideal nesting material.
If you have even just three trees plus a little shade, ferns will convert this to a real woodsy setting. Your small scale woods-like area, but genuine in feel and atmosphere. Whatever small wooded area they grace, ferns seem to enlarge it. They even bring the feel of woods where no woods exist at all, as when planted on the north side of a wall, in the shadow of a building, or in any protected shady place.
What’s more, you can dig almost any fern you need from the wild, if you live near such an area. There are not many fern species on conservation lists. However you need to check first, just to be on the safe side. Just don’t pick any old area to get your ferns, make sure it is not private property. Depending on the situation it might be best and faster to just go down to the nearest nursery to get the ferns you need.
Ferns are fillers for bulb plantings in a shady or semi-shady area. They can be a fine and significant feature of your basic landscape design. Also they hold the soil in place along the banks of streams, ponds, lakes, or on any shady or sunny slope.
You can even eat ferns in their early growth; cut and cook them like asparagus, swimming in butter. Each year in the dead of winter I resolve to try this. But when spring arrives I never have the heart to disturb them with knife and cooking pot. Whether you eat them or look at them, ferns are well worth keeping track of in the spring. However, even if none of these culinary or visual delights and adventures existed, there is still a good reason why ferns are a must for somewhere in your outdoors area.
There is a great and irresistible appeal of their new fronds. They began uncurling out of last year’s dead crown. There on the leafy woods floor or ground as it may be, you watch the golden-brown furry frond reach up and give itself to spring. In its very unfurling is a kind of yielding, a yielding to the new season and an exhilarating life of its own.
Here’s a brief description of a fern’s frond. A fern frond consists of “leaves,” stem and all. A pinna is a single “leaf” on this stem. A pinnule is one of the divisions of this “leaf.” In other words, a pinnule is a small segment of the pinna which is part of the frond. A sporophyll is a spore-bearing frond. The spores (fruit) are the little brown dots or “seeds” often noted on the undersides of the pinnae. A spore-bearing frond is called a sporophyll. The sporophyll may be similar to the sterile fronds or, as in the cinnamon fern and a number of others, quite differently designed.
Ferns populate and spread naturally by spores and underground runners. You can also propagate them by dividing the clumps. There are ferns for every sort of location. Ferns are hardy plants that will serve you well. Try some in your garden in a shady spot if one exists. You will be surprised at the beauty and woods-like feeling they will exude.