Friday, 6 July 2012

fern lovin'

Recently, I find myself in a rather happy kind of place.  You see the sun has been shining, temperatures hot, and an overwhelming sense of happiness that it is now summer.  With all the happiness of summer I am left with one emotion ... love.  I love summer.  So its no coincidence that I can't help but share my garden loves.  Today, ferns.  Either I'm super PNWesterner and it's just in my dna, or there is something extra special about these wonderful plants.  To me, they are both lush/tropical, and rustic/woodland all at the same time.  Whats not to love about that?

Dicksonia Antarctica has to be one of my favourite of all the ferns.  Tender in our zone 8 climate but well worth it.  This one I got at the Pacific Northwest Palm and Exotic Plant Society plant sale a while back has the longest fronds of any Dicksonia Antarctica I have seen for a fern of this size.  Maybe it will be a vigorous grower for me (wishful thinking I know).

Ferns ferns ferns.  They pop up everywhere in the yard and I never really seem to mind.

One of my favourite things is watching the fiddle heads develop and unfurl like this one.

Slowly the small and compacted little fiddle heads turn into graceful fronds.


Hopefully one day my tree ferns will look like these ones (Pooh Corner - Disneyland).

Or these beauties planted along side chamaerops humils (Disney's California Adventure Park).  It just goes to show their versatility to be grown in both sun or shade.

Keeping with the Disney theme, "FERNS are friends, not food!" Well fiddle heads are, but I've never been able to eat them for the reason that I feel as though I'm killing a fern.

4 comments:

  1. Love tree ferns, they're almost palm-like...hmm.

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    1. I agree!!! They just exude tropical! Apparently they can grow relatively quick with regular feelings of fish fertilizer.

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  2. I like your ferns...ours are squat, hiding under boulders or north slopes...and the last few years, very dormant. Yours' really evoke a softening and accenting appearance to other plants, kind of like Cascadian spikyness. Seems there must be a way to mix those in with less xeric plants like Trachys, the southeastern yuccas (Y. gloriosa, Y. aloifolia).

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    1. The ferns do look stunning with trachys and other yuccas. It makes for a really tropical and lush look. It also provides a nice balance to the hairy trachy trunks. I think one of the most stunning is our western sword fern ... something that is greatly taken for granted.

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