As the winter winds blow and the landscape loses most of the clues that anything green ever graced it, the need for living plants grows strong in many of us.
That need inevitably leads us to a store in search of the biggest, greenest splash of color available, and more often than not, a Boston fern magically appears in our shopping cart, its sheer size evidence enough that it is the cure for the end-of-the-gardening-seas on blues.
How easy it is to forget that by the new year it will be scraggly looking and that by Easter enough waterings will have been missed to reduce it to a mere shadow of its once-proud self. It will get put outside next summer in an attempt at revival, but failing even that, it will nestle into the compost heap in time for another swath of green to be purchased. Plant sellers love us for it.
It is a botanical paradox that indoor ferns, those that are hardy year around only in tropical climates, are so difficult to nurse through a northern winter indoors, while those hardy ferns in our gardens are one of the easiest plants to grow. Many are the plants whose demise can be blamed on my watering can, but never have the few ferns in our yard failed to return in spring.
”Ferns are a real procrastinator`s delight,” says Dr. John Mickel, senior curator at the New York Botanical Garden. ”My wife grows the flowers in our garden, and they take a lot of work. With ferns, sometimes years go by without my getting out there and worrying about them.” Mickel, however, is a botanist who studies and identifies the thousands of species of ferns, not a horticulturist who specializes in growing them. And even though he downplays his gardening skills, he still manages to nurture more than 100 varieties, including his beloved ostrich ferns.
Mickel obtained 6 ostrich ferns (so called because their long, feathery fronds resemble the plumes of an ostrich) 12 years ago and now counts more than 400 in the planting, even though, he says, ”We give away 50 to 100 each year.” The plants send out underground stolons that appear as new plants a foot or two from the parent, increasing the stock each year. With that many ferns of one type, it is not surprising to find that Mickel has a use for them-and an unusual one at that.
In the early spring, growth shoots begin to emerge from the plant`s crown as tightly coiled crosiers, or fiddleheads. ”When they get about 2 or 3 inches tall, we cut them, wash off a few scales, boil them for three minutes and use them just as you would any other vegetable,” Mickel says. ”We cool them and toss them in the freezer or serve them hot as a vegetable tasting very much like asparagus. We let them cool and put them in salads or serve them cold on the plate. I like them best warmed up and dipped in hollandaise sauce as an hors d`oeuvre. We`ve used them in quiches and ave a very short harvest time, and if you`re not on the lookout, you`ll miss the whole season,” Mickel says. Harvesting the emerging growth seems to have no effect on the plant`s vitality, he says. ”What you want is the tightly coiled fiddleheads; the leafy stalks are not as tasty.” Fiddleheads are widely harvested in their native New England and appear at vegetable stands and delis in the New York area, Mickel reports. Other types of ferns are eaten elsewhere, but the botanist warns that some of them are quite toxic and shouldn`t be eaten. In other words, if it isn`t an ostrich, don`t eat it.
Ostrich ferns grow to 3 or 4 feet tall in the wild, but not more than about 3 feet in a garden setting, he says. They are known as shuttlecock ferns in England because they grow in a tight upright pattern.
Mickel points out that ostrich ferns have problems west of New England, an opinion shared by Mark Zilis, co-owner of Planter`s Palette nursery in West Chicago. ”It`s a pretty fern for the first half of the growing season, but it will turn brown in late summer if there is not enough soil moisture,” he says. ”They need a fairly wet site and shade. They are still used
extensively, and once you have it, you`ll always have it. A lady told me she
(planted it) 2 feet down and they still popped up.”
Zilis says there are several fern species that are well suited to the Chicago area, and many of them are starting to reach the commercial market, widening the choices for gardeners. ”I think there`s going to be an explosion of interest in outdoor ferns fairly soon-it`s pretty exciting right now.”
Among the old standbys that do well here, Zilis chooses three members of the Osmunda genus that reach 4 to 6 feet each year. The cinnamon fern is excellent for a moist woodland environment; the interrupted fern is more adaptable to drier situations; and the royal fern has been described as a mutant locust tree with reddish foliage that can be planted in most soil types.
Another standard is the lady fern, which has broader fronds and a more open growth pattern than most other ferns and is very adaptable to local landscapes, Zilis says. Christmas ferns are one of the evergreen types and do best in deep shade. They reach 2 feet when mature. Zilis also recommends the toothed wood fern, which is similar to the more widely available marginal wood fern.
Northern maidenhair ferns ”look wispy when you buy them, but once they`re established, they will do really well. They are not difficult to grow for a shady border,” Zilis says.
Come spring, the hottest sellers at Zilis` nursery will be the Japanese painted ferns, noted for their multicolored fronds. In addition to green foliage, the foot-tall ferns have gray-green and purple-red leaves. ”There are so many indoor ferns that have multicolored foliage, (but) this is probably the one that stands out most of the outdoor ferns.”
If different shades of foliage were the only reasons to grow ferns indoors, the market for such plants would be small, indeed. What the fern fancier can gain by making a year-`round effort is the ability to grow an array of different specimens. Wanda Supanich, supervisor of the educational greenhouses at the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe, cares for, among others, an 18-foot-tall Australian tree fern and a staghorn fern 5 feet across and 6 feet tall. ”You can`t see the wall behind the dense foliage,” she says.
Supanich is not exactly enthralled by the Boston fern, which she views as too rampant a grower for indoors. ”The new growth lays on top of the old fronds, shading those leaves, and the plant lets go of the old growth,” she notes.
”I`d rather have a hanging basket with another type of plant that doesn`t drop little leaflets.
”If I had a Boston fern, I`d divide it every year and a half to keep it in house size. You should saw it right down the center or into thirds or fourths and saw a third off the bottom of the root ball as well. Put it back in the same-size pot, plant it with moist peat moss and soak it thoroughly immediately. Then prune off all the long stemmy fronds underneath all the way back to the soil line.” Although many plants prefer to be potbound, ferns should be repotted before their root mass reaches the edge of their pots.
Supanich says ferns need more light than most home gardeners provide. The plants need very bright indirect light because window glass filters out the ultraviolet rays that make plants grow.
As for the crucial moisture factor, giving a fern a cup of water whenever other plants are receiving their ration is the worst way to tend to its needs, Supanich says. Ferns, she says, need even moisture-they should never be sitting in water or allowed to dry out. You should take a fern to the sink and water it thoroughly, she advises. Soak it three or four times with warm water, which is absorbed by a peat-based soil mix faster than cold water. After the plant drains, it can go back to its window, but until its next shower, which is before it becomes dry to the touch, humidity around the plant is crucial. Supanich recommends a pebble tray into which an inverted saucer is placed for the fern`s pot to sit on. The pebbles are then kept wet but the fern`s roots stay above the water, keeping them from becoming waterlogged.
Ferns have many fine root hairs, and once the plant becomes dehydrated, those hairs die. ”Once that happens, you have a major amount of root damage, and that`s why you get leaf drop,” Supanich says. ”You lose the same proportion of roots as foliage. If the plant dries out, cut back the dried fronds all the way, and then cut back two or three or four others that aren`t damaged to give the roots a chance to catch up and provide new growth faster.”
Because a well-grown Boston fern can get quite large, Supanich finds smaller ferns preferable for the home. Button ferns are low-growing, often wider than tall, with dark, rich green foliage that is not as humidity-sensitive as some others. Fluffy Duffy is a Boston fern cousin with soft, lacy foliage. Fluffy Ruffles is slightly larger.
Dallas ferns appear similar to Boston ferns but tolerate less light. Supanich says they grow rapidly, stay compact, are smaller than Bostons but drop just as many leaves.
Southern maidenhair ferns, with their more-rounded leaf structures, are not hardy here and thus are grown as a houseplant. They are popular because of their airy look, but Supanich warns that they are probably the most difficult to keep because of their need for moisture. ”If you have time to mist them once or twice a day, you should do fine,” she says.
Pteris ferns have long slender leaves, and many have several segments of different color combinations from gold-green to silver-green. There are coarse and fine-leafed varieties. One cautionary note from Supanich: ”Once they dry out, they`re gone.”
If it sounds as if Supanich is critical of ferns, she isn`t. In fact, she has a whole stash of them out in one of the back greenhouses at the Botanic Garden that is being prepared for a major display. She won`t unveil them for about a year, though, because she wants only mature plants for the showcase.
By then, our Boston fern will have suffered all the tortures Supanich warns against, shed enough leaves to clog the vacuum cleaner and been banished from the house. Out in the garden, there probably will be a few more specimens, but don`t come asking for sauteed fiddleheads just yet.
