Carol Klein admires the foliage of ferns and shares her gardening week
My favourite ferns for FAB FOLIAGE The emerging fronds are as fresh and green as new beech leaves!
Ferns are special plants; there are even special names for their emerging fronds, ‘croziers’, derived from their resemblance to shepherds’ crooks and the staff carried by bishops. ‘Frond’ itself is a special name for the leaf!
They’re among the most ancient plants on our earth, appearing long before flowers, and consequently have their own special and highly esoteric reproductive life, which doesn’t rely on pollen or insects (there weren't any bees around when ferns first evolved). For me, their primal unfurling is a reminder of how ancient our world is but at the same time an announcement, impossible to ignore, of the inexorability of spring.
Some ferns are evergreen but most of our native species are herbaceous, their old fronds dying back during the winter. To make the most of the tight-clenched fists formed by the embryonic fronds, we cut last year’s withered fronds right back to the base. That way the emerging ones aren’t impeded by the old growth. Having said that, nothing could stop their relentless advance.
The colour of these new fronds is entirely vernal, as fresh and green as new beech leaves and their midribs are softly scaley and as rusty as the bud casings that wrap these emerging beech leaves. Probably the very brightest of these ferns is the golden shield fern, Dryopteris affinis, whose fronds are vivid lime-green, almost yellow at first. There are a few specimens of this in our local hedgerows, which stand out like glowing beacons among the greening grass and the remnants of last autumn’s leaves.
Ferns are very much at home in the garden at Glebe Cottage and they abound throughout Devon. In the Victorian era trains full of ferns pillaged from the Devon countryside would regularly head for London to feed the fern mania that possessed the capital. Fortunately for us and for the hedgerows and woodland of this lovely county, ferns spread themselves prodigiously.
Two of the most common that abound in our garden here, though they’ve never been planted deliberately, are the male fern and the lady fern. They’re not related but are often to be found growing in close proximity. The male fern, Dryopteris filix-mas, is bold and upright with its fronds forming a shuttlecock effect.
The lady fern Athyrium filixfemina is a daintier fern, its fronds more divided, resulting in a softer look. During winter, even though its fronds have turned to biscuit, it never looks as dishevelled as other ferns. Nonetheless, it must be cut back now if we’re to make the most of its display.
These two native ferns, together with the hart’s tongue fern, Asplenium scolopendrium, put themselves around the garden, often growing at the base of walls or the edge of steps. Some of them have made great lumpy stumps and we leave them to their own devices, but on odd occasions they have to be extracted from beds where they’re overshadowing other less robust plants. Getting them out can be hard work; though their root systems are shallow, they’re dense and fibrous, which explains why they’re such successful and persistent plants.
'They stand out like glowing beacons among the greening grass and the remnants of last autumn’s leaves'