evergreen fern

Microsorum buergerianum 'Datun'

Evergreen Fern Mat

We just snapped this photo of one of our more amazing fern introductions, Microsorum buergerianum ‘Datun’. This six year-old clump is from our 2008 spore collection of this fabulous mat forming, epiphytic fern from north of Taipei, Taiwan. Although the foliage burnt back at 11 degrees F, it re-flushed quickly the following spring. Hardiness Zone

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Neolepisorus fortunei 'Green Ribbons'

Rockin’ Ferner

In January, we posted photos of the Asian epiphytic fern, Neolepisorus fortunei ‘Green Ribbons’ growing in the ground, in our woodland garden. Here is another planting of it, growing as a lithophyte (on rocks) in our crevice garden. This six year old patch of ribbon fern shows that it doesn’t require soil to thrive. This

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Asparagus horridus

Asparagus is Horrid

Thriving through our summer of heat is the fascinating Asparagus horridus. If you can’t tell from the photo, the foliage of this asparagus fern is actually masses of needle-sharp spines, from hence the specific epithet arises. This species is little-known in ornamental gardening circles, although foragers actually harvest the young foliage for food before the

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Pyrrosia polydactyla 'Middle Finger'

Middle Finger Fern

Pyrrosia polydactyla ‘Middle Finger’ is an excellent clone of the Taiwanese native five-fingered tongue fern with an exceptionally long middle pinnae. Quite a few nurseries, especially in the Pacific Northwest, offer this as another clumping, but uniquely different species, Pyrrosia hastata. In the garden, it’s quite at home in dry shade, especially happy growing on

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Neolepisorus fortunei 'Green Ribbons'

Decorate the Woodland with Green Ribbons

Looking lovely in the mid-January winter garden is the fern, Neolepisorus fortunei ‘Green Ribbons’. This fascinating evergreen fern looks nothing like what most gardeners are familiar with, when they think ferns. Neolepisorus is one of several genera of ferns, known as ribbon ferns. These ferns grow epiphytically (on trees) and lithophytically (on rocks), mostly in

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Tongue Caught in the Crack

We’ve struggled for years to grow some of the exceptional forms of Hart’s Tongue fern, Asplenium scolopendrium in our hot, humid climate. One cultivar that we’d long been enamored with is Asplenium ‘Keratoides’. After killing nearly everything we had, we stuck one in the crevice garden, where, to our amazement, it has performed marvelously. It

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Time to bring back Resurrection Ferns

One of my favorite plants when I strolled through the woods as a young child was resurrection fern, Pleopeltis michauxiana. If the Latin name sounds unfamiliar, it was originally published in 1939 as a member of a different fern genus, Polypodium polypodioides var. michauxiana. It’s natural distribution range is quite large, from West Virginia south

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Pleopeltis – The Grey-haired Brazilian Sword Fern

We’ve been fortunate to grow a huge number of hardy garden ferns through the years, but it’s hard for any to top the amazing Pleopeltis lepidopteris, to which, we’ve given the common name, Brazilian hairy sword fern. Below is a patch at JLBG, composed of three individual clumps, looking great, despite the ravages of summer.

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Storm Watch

We have long loved the evergreen, tri-lobed, Asian (China, Korea, Japan) epiphytic fern, Pyrrosia hastata. Our favorite clone, pictured below, is one we purchased many years ago from an on-line Japanese plant auction, and subsequently named Pyrrosia ‘Storm Watch’, due to its dark black central leaf vein. Unlike the rhizomatous Pyrrosia lingua, Pyrrosia hastata forms

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Morphing Aglamorpha

Back in the 1970s, when I was specializing in house plants, one of my favorites was the epiphytic fern genus, Aglamorpha. These staghorn relatives made delightful hanging baskets, despite being far outside the bell curve in regards to recognizability to most gardeners. Over the years, as I migrated more to hardy perennials, I gave up

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