The Case for Native Ferns

I admit at the beginning that I do like green. 

Hart’s Tongue:  I moved a shed and planted a greenhouse on where it had been, without any levelling needed.  Hart’s Tongue popped up everywhere.  I planted them freely in the shrub border and the wilder parts.  A unique shape and evergreen.   

In Surrey greensand there are seams of limey-sandstone.  Where it outcrops Hart’s Tongue is found.  In my ph 6-ish soil is OK for this fern.  Stll sporing in my greenhouse.  I can never have enough. 

Male Fern, Dryopsis filix-mas:  Spores itself arounf freely in damp patches in my garden.   I leave it in situ or move some to the shrub border edge (effect seen at Chelsea).  I am covering an area of woodland to in creas shade where the sun breaks through and the bluebells are fewer and smaller. 

Lady Fern, Anthurium filix-femina: I get a few of these.  Personally, I think they are coarser and less feminine than the “male”.  

Common Polypody: One day when I was walking in a quiet lane near Alternum (famous for its vicar) I came cross a large fallen branch. Being public spirited, I pulled it to one side.  I harvested many of the polypodies as my reward. 

I now have it naturalising at the base of trees and alongside a path.  It is also very happy in a Cotswold stone wall that I would have thought too alkaline.

I was establishing it on a rotting log-pile that abuts my compost heap, but the hot dry summer seems to have badly affected it. Hey ho! Trial and error.  But I will wait and see. 

Spleenwort, asplenium: This grows on the same Cotswold stone wall.  Likes it. Spores a bit. 

Hard Fern, Blechnum spicata:  I have just one plant.  Last winter it didn’t come through well, just 3 little growth centres.  I intended to rescue these and coddle them.  But didn’t get around to it.  Now all appears dead.  I will watch and wait. 

Shield Fern, Polystichum setiferum:  I’m not sure whether this is a British native or not.  Mine came from a Devon garden, and is very hardy and evergreen.  It comes up in my greenhouse from time to time from when I was nursing it in a pot.  One plant in the garden, one time only, had a number of pigga-back offsets that I potted on.  I now have it in similar postions to the male ferns.  I prefer the simpler wild forms of ferns generally, but this Polystichum comes in several more divided leaf forms that I find not too monsterous. 

But why pay, when there is so much variety for free?