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Photo Credit: ©2000 Dolezal Publishing/John M. Rickard

Pot up some beautiful ferns to provide a dramatic backdrop for flowers and other foliage.

Ferns are truly amazing plants! With a fossil history dating back 300 million years and about 12,000 known varieties, these plants have a unique place in gardening lore. They offer a tremendous range of sizes – from tiny miniatures to giant trees. And the textures ferns come in are as varied as their sizes – making them a unique backdrop to other plants and flowers.

Most fern varieties require less light than other annual and perennial plantings, allowing you to bring subtle color and texture to dark or stark corners of rooms or shady garden niches. While you can propagate ferns, it’s a slow process. Buying a new plant at your local garden center and transplanting the fern in the garden or a container is really the easiest (and fastest) way to get more of the plants you want.

Transplanting ferns into a container garden – whether placed solidly in the ground or suspended along your front porch – is easy. Just follow the simple steps shown in the pictures at the end of this article and described in their captions.

Once potted, proper care is important. Remember that ferns love cool, moist environments. They can’t tolerate sustained heat or frost – such conditions will quickly kill even large specimens. Their foliage and fronds are delicate, especially when first forming. The plants also benefit from misting throughout the first month or so of development. Ferns are generally resistant to fungal diseases that would otherwise fell other container plants treated to the fern preferred regimen of cool, continuously damp (but not soggy) soil (although a number of species tolerate drier conditions, too).

Unlike other seedlings and starter plants, young ferns require a significant adjustment period to the open air. So for two weeks or so following transplant, place your ferns in a cool, sheltered location outdoors with adequate protection from strong sunlight and heat, and monitor how your plants are doing. If they start to whither or change color, cover them, move them to a warmer location and allow them to recover. Once they’ve adjusted to their final location, they’ll make durable and enduring additions to the garden, adapting to changes in the weather with relative ease.