Ferns & Sedges

Foliage texture is always going to be more important in a woodland garden than in a sunny border, where bright colour from flowers is so much easier to achieve. Ferns and sedges are lovely, natural components of the forest floor. Be sure to use lots of ferns and sedges in your shady garden for a verdant and relaxed woodland style.

Visiting Lis Allison’s fern garden at her Pine Ridge Studio is chance to see many ferns and other woodland plants in their mature form so you can get an idea of which you might like in your own garden. Lis has grown many of her ferns from spores – a finicky exercise quite unlike growing flowering plants from seeds. Her garden includes many locally native ferns, some quite uncommon, and some ferns from Alaska and the west coast as well. Her garden and pottery studio will be open next weekend for our joint Natives & Clay event. Lis’s garden also includes a lovely flower-filled rock garden and a forest walk.

I will be bringing several ferns and sedges for sale at the event. Pictured above (left to right): Front row: Pennsylvania Sedge (Carex pensylvanica), C. eburnea, C. rosea, Northern or Narrow Beech Fern (Phegopteris connectilis), Oak Fern (Gymnocarpium dryopteris). Back Row: Allegheny Fringe (Adlumia fungosa) – not a fern but looking like one in its first year, Spinulose Wood Fern (Dryopteris spinulosa) and Lady Fern (Athyrium filix-femina).

As well as ferns and sedges, I will be bringing many other native wildflowers to the sale. There will be some species, of which I have only a few pots, which did not make it on to the September Availability List, such as the Allegheny Fringe and the Oak Fern, pictured above. You will want to browse for these in person. However, you can pre-order from the September Availability List for pick-up at the sale. Please e-mail your order by Thursday, September 5th, 6 pm: ovnp@xplore.net