STARS SHADE OF THE

Fabulous ferns will thrive in your garden’s dark and damp corners, says Monty Don – and now’s the time to plant them

Last month I moved a couple of tree ferns, Dicksonia antarctica, that had been languishing, almost hidden, at the back of my pond. When I planted them four years ago you could see them alluringly through dappled leaves, but that has now become a thick screen, which has also been blocking the rain – and tree ferns like to be almost constantly damp, so this was a problem too.

So I’ve taken them to the other end of the garden, putting them among some other ferns in a shady, lush border. They’re easy to move because the trunks are, in fact, a bundle of roots around a hard core, and although they do grow roots underground, these are not as important as those above the surface.

I like their new home because of the association. I dislike tree ferns being used as ‘architectural’ or statement plants, set on their own. They look best among other ferns beneath an upper storey of taller trees casting a gentle shade.

The ferns beneath the tree ferns are not particularly rare but I like them a lot. In fact my admiration and enjoyment of ferns has steadily grown over the past decade and we’ve added more and more, not just in the dark, dank corners but also as major planting features.

This is a good time to plant ferns, and the evergreen ones will add valuable green colour and texture to any winter garden. By far the most adaptable and easiest to grow are the various dryopteris. They will grow in deep, dry shade, in light shade, in damp soil and even in full sun – a rare thing for a fern. The male fern, D. filix-mas, will grow almost anywhere given protection from wind, sending up 1m-tall crosiers (young leaves with coiled, hook-shaped tips). It’s one of the few plants that will be perfectly happy planted hard against the walls of a building.

The fronds turn from green to brown in autumn, and they’re cut back by a hard frost.

Its golden-green relative, D. affinis, is slightly smaller and more refined but just as adaptable. I particularly like ‘Cristata’, which has crests on the tip and sides of the 1m-long fronds. These gradually brown off and I remove the lot, cutting back to the knuckle of the plant from which the new fronds uncoil in spring.

Polypodiums are smaller but evergreen and very happy in deep shade. They don’t start their growth before mid-summer, but make up for this tardiness with a superb winter display. It’s best to clip back the leathery fronds in spring. Asplenium scolopendrium also has evergreen foliage, which is unfeathery, shiny and beautifully crimped along its edges. It must be grown in shade and needs moisture, so it’s ideal for that dark, damp corner.

Athyriums are beautifully feathery and make an excellent understorey to tree ferns because they also need moist air and some moisture in the soil if they’re not to brown and shrivel – although like all ferns, they will recover quickly when given enough water.

The shuttlecock fern, Matteuccia struthiopteris, and royal fern, Osmunda regalis, both need moisture and are very happy in a bog. But I grow them in the area where I’ve planted the tree ferns, which is certainly not boggy, and they seem quite at home. The osmunda’s tolerant nature is underscored by the fact that it’s content in my neutral soil, when as a rule it prefers acidic conditions – so give it a go, unless you’re gardening on chalk. n

Monty behind a Dicksonia antarctica