Dense Asp

After going 0 for 3 in the past couple of decades to even get spores to even germinate, we now have the amazing, dwarf rock garden fern, Aspidotis densea (dense lace fern) thriving in the crevice garden. Because of it’s native range from Canada south through central California, we started with two strikes against us, to be able to grow this in hot, humid North Carolina. In the wild, it grows on seasonally moist, serpentine soils in Douglas Fir and similar forests, of which we are also lacking. About the only thing we could manage are the rock cracks, which it also requires. In the wild, it grows in full to part sun. Our plant gets 3-4 hours of morning sun, then shade for the remainder of the day, where it grows in a pH of 8.0 in a mix of Permatill gravel, native sandy loam, and compost. To our astonishment, our plants are now just over a year in the ground, and seem to be quite happy.