?Ferns and Fern like Plants

Many of the most beautiful ferns have their natural habitat in the tropics, where can be found a wealth of material suitable for pot plants.

As ferns grow their best in very moist conditions, gardeners are often led to believe that they need to be soaked continually in water. This is not so. It is the atmosphere that needs to be kept damp and not the fronds. Overhead watering can damage the more delicate types, ruining the fronds and often causing the young unopened fronds to rot before they open. Plenty of water should be provided under the plants to give evaporation, but the pots should not be stood in water as this makes the soil too moist. All water should be given under the fronds, using a watering can without a rose. Only during the dry season, when the fronds become very dusty, should they be sprayed with a fine spray in the early morning to remove the dust,

The majority of ferns are shallow-rooted and they are better planted in shallow clay pots than deep ones. Give good drainage by placing a layer of broken crock or large cinders over the holes at the bottom of the pot. The depth of this layer depends on the depth of the pot, but as a guide a pot 6 inches deep should have a layer 2 inches deep.

It is a common mistake to plant ferns in pots that are too big for them; better results will be obtained if young plants are grown in small pots and transplanted carefully as they grow. This is essential for the more decorative ferns with small leaves as if planted into a pot which is too big for them, they will not thrive.

A good planting mixture can be made with 2 parts of crumbly loam, part leaf mould and i part coarse sand, with the addition of a few lumps of charcoal and old mortar rubble, if available. The last two help to keep the mixture less acid – ferns do not thrive in an acid soil.

Most of the ferns which are commonly used for decoration have a fibrous root system and can be propagated by division. It is best to divide before the plants start to send up a new flush of fronds; if delayed, the check will make some of the fronds wilt. Ferns with rhizomes are propagated either by allowing the rhizome to send out roots at the nodal points (which they do very easily) or by cutting the roots into pieces and planting separately.