GARDENING IN HARMONY WITH NATURE IN THE NORTHEAST

Native Ferns

No woodland garden would be complete without lots and lots of ferns. With a few notable exceptions (Cinnamon Fern anybody?), ferns are seldom showy. Instead they are reliable, tough, and many of them are upon close inspection quite intricately beautiful. In addition, they are as deer resistant as it gets. The Northeast is blessed with many garden-worthy species of fern, so there is little need to consider exotics in this class. Instead, try looking for unusual native ferns to add to your landscape. Plant them in masses, as a backdrop for herbaceous plants, or as accent plants.

Ferns present on our woodland even before we started gardening included New York Fern, Christmas Fern, Sensitive Fern, Cinnamon Fern, Interrupted Fern and Rock Polypody. We have encouraged them to spread and added quite a few additional species.

Christmas Fern

Christmas Fern can be found all over our garden. It prefers well-drained sites that don’t completely dry out in dry spells, often colonizing the upper portions of woodland slopes in association with Rue Anemone. In spring the fiddle-heads beautifully emerge from the ground and unfurl, while in summer the dense foliage is displayed boldly. A clump-forming fern that stays green all winter (thus the common name). It starts out light green and becomes darker as the season progresses.

New York Fern

New York Fern prefers conditions a little wetter than Christmas Fern. After removing some fallen wood and pulling the invasive garlic mustard, New York Fern formed a continuous carpet of around 1000 square feet in one location on our property. We have it popping up in the former meadow as well now. So this species may be a bit too weedy for some. A lookalike, Hay-scented Fern, is apparently an even more aggressive spreader. Nonetheless, we like the large dense colony it formed. New York Fern starts to look a bit ragged around September and has completely gone dormant by October.

Sensitive Fern

Sensitive Fern has separate sterile and fertile fronds. The larger sterile fronds disappear at the slightest hint of frosty temperatures in fall (thus “sensitive”), while the fertile fronds persist all winter and even into the next season as showy black stalks. When the fertile fronds first emerge in late spring, they are light green. Sensitive Fern is spreading rather aggressively, so give it space or combine it with other similarly tough plants such as Golden Ragwort.

Ostrich Fern

Ostrich Fern is a tall clumping fern with very wide and showy sterile fronds. These are the edible Fiddle-heads when they first appear rolled-up in spring. Harvest a few when they are young and simmer in a pan. A very unusual native dish. Fertile fronds are much narrower and appear in summer in the center of the clump. As is the case with Sensitive Fern, the fertile fronds persist throughout winter. Ostrich Fern propagates easily by underground runners. It is native to both North America and Eurasia. The American variety is apparently not quite as tall as the Eurasian variety. We combine Ostrich Fern with spring ephemerals such as Bloodroot that go dormant when the ferns reach their ultimate size in summer.

Interrupted Fern

Interrupted Fern is unique in that it carries its spores in a section of an otherwise sterile frond. The fertile section is brown or black, contrasting nicely with the green sterile sections. When the spores have dropped off, the fertile sections remain empty, thus the common name “Interrupted” Fern. This Fern grows well in moist slopes or bottom-lands. Apart from the location of the spores, this fern looks very similar to Cinnamon Fern.

Cinnamon Fern

With its long cinnamon-colored fertile fronds surrounded by tall green sterile fronds, Cinnamon Fern is arguably the most showy of the native ferns. We are fortunate to have it growing at the margins of a neighboring swampy area where it is associated with Tussock Sedge and Skunk Cabbage. It grows well in our shaded woodland garden setting as well. Cinnamon Fern has great yellow fall color to boot.

Royal Fern

Royal Fern stands out among all other native ferns in that its mature foliage looks almost like that of flowering plants. Brown fertile fronds are displayed royally at the top. The unfurling fiddleheads emerge beautifully in a dark color tone. Young fronds In some of our individual plants, look quite interestingly ‘inverted’, with the sterile (lower) part of the fronds in a purplish color tone and the young fertile parts on top in green. Maybe this is the variety ‘Purpurascens’? We planted our colony in a wet spot and they seem happy there.

Marginal Wood Fern

There are several excellent native Wood Ferns of the genus Dryopteris to choose from. Marginal Wood Fern is a certainly one of the best. It has a very neat vase-shaped clumping habit, topping out at 2 feet. Emerging Fiddleheads are arranged in a symmetrical circle. Beautiful green shades of the fronds. The spores are located in clusters at the margins at the underside of the fronds. Go and inspect up close!

Goldie’s Wood Fern

Goldie’s Wood Fern is the tallest of the wood fern species, reaching 3-4′. While it’s cousin the Marginal Wood Fern is tightly vase-shaped, Goldie’s Wood Fern has a more open, spreading habit. This is a very good choice for covering larger areas more quickly than with the other wood ferns. We have both of the species growing happily on a rocky slope.

Dixie Wood Fern

Strictly speaking, Dixie Wood Fern is not a native to the Northeast. It is a naturally occurring hybrid of two southern species, Log Fern and Southern Wood Fern. The hybrid is much bigger and more winter hardy than the two parents, and does very well in the Northeast. It is sterile, so propagated only by division. Dixie Wood fern can get as tall as 4-5′, a very bold statement in the landscape. In our garden it has not reached that height yet.

Lady Fern

Lady Fern is a graceful compact fern around 2′ that forms nice clumps and spreads very slowly by rhizomes. The variety ‘Lady in Red’ is especially showy with contrasting light green fronds with dark burgundy red stems. We are trying to build a nice colony of this fern by dividing clumps every couple of years. Unfurling fiddleheads are also very showy.

Northern Maidenhair Fern

Northern Maidenhair Fern displays its fronds beautifully elevated in a whorled flat-top manner over long spindly stalks. This is truly a showy native fern. Mature Maidenhair ferns can have a pronounced layered look. This fern likes slopes that never dry out. It contrasts nicely with broad-leaf perennials.

Maidenhair Spleenwort

Maidenhair Spleenwort, a tiny fern found almost in the entire world, grows well in dryer spots such as rock gardens. We have seen it growing even in the cracks of old stone walls. A great addition for tight and dry spaces. Quite tough, but wish it would spread faster.

Netted Chain Fern

Netted Chain Fern is a species you won’t find at many nurseries. With luck you will find it at a native plant sale. The sterile fronds are broad and look very similar to Sensitive Fern, but it is the thread-like fertile fronds, and the contrast they exhibit together with the sterile ones that makes this fern truly outstanding. It is slowly spreading where happy.

Northern Oak Fern

Northern Oak Fern occasionally grows in the wild in our region, but somehow we have not been very lucky trying to establish it in our woodland. We like the nice triangular shape of the fronds.

Rock Polypody

Rock Polypody looks a bit like a smaller version of Christmas Fern with “many feet”. It spreads to form nice colonies over time, developing new shoots from the root system. It likes dry soil and grows well on rock surfaces with very little soil. A nice choice to colonize bare surfaces.

Hartford Fern

What is not to like about a native evergreen fern with a true climbing habit? Hartford Fern was the first species in America on the endangered species list because people collected this vine at Christmas time for Christmas decoration purposes. It is quite cute, with palm-like sterile fronds and diminutive fertile fronds. On our property it has only reached a length of maybe 2′. In the wild it is expected to climb up to 15′.

And finally one non-native Fern suggestion:

Himalayan Maidenhair Fern

Himalayan Maidenhair Fern, one of the few non-natives discussed here is a distant cousin of our native Northern Maidenhair Fern . It is diminutive at about 6″ in height, and forms a cute, slowly spreading evergreen ground-cover.