Why I Oughta...

I have been eying the addition of some Japanese Painted Ferns to our backyard all this growing season.  I have one that I planted on the north side of the screened porch in 2018 .  It is a Athyrium nipponicum 'Pictum' and it has done really well on it's own over there mostly being left alone.  Here's what it looked like last Fall/late Summer in August of 2020 .  And in Priority Area #1 from this year , I was thinking of using Japanese Painted ferns instead of the (currently) spec'd Ostrich Ferns.   When I was at the Morton Arboretum Spring Sale, I came across these painted ferns and I ended up buying four of them to add to the backyard.   Here's the tag (below), which shows these aren't the same "Pictum" ferns that I had already, rather they are called Ghost Japanese-Lady Ferns.  Athyrium 'Ghost' and they're described as a 'hybrid with the best qualities of Japanese Painted and Lady Fern'.  Kinda great, right?  I have one Lady F

 Back in July, on a whim, I bought a small Lady Fern from Home Depot and decided to plant it in the bed adjacent to my Ostrich Ferns a couple of weeks later. The fern was looking very healthy when it went in near mid/late July .  But, then something happened.  It went from green and healthy to dry, brown, limp and seemingly dead.   It felt like that transformation happened one day.  I was looking at the fern one day and the next it was dead.  I panic'd and grabbed the hose and soaked it.  Then I applied some wood chip mulch around it and watered it again the next day and the day after that.  A week later or so....I saw some new growth.   Since then, I've watered it and tried to keep it going.   Today?  This is what it looks like below.  It seems that between the water and the cooler temperatures, this Lady Fern seems to have recovered.   Will this recovery be enough for the fern to establish itself and prepare for the coming Winter?  We'll know next Spring.  

I recently got around to sticking the new Lady Fern in the ground in our backyard.  That's it - in the photo above - with the most  vibrant green foliage on the middle/right.  The story of how I bought this thing on a whim at Home Depot is here on the blog from a couple of weeks ago.  I took the photo here for the [ garden diary ] showing the location of the planting in relation to the River Birch tree.  Another way to think about the location is to take a peek at the photo above and notice the location of the River Birch and the clump of fern stems that you see in the top right.  Then, go here , and have a look at the reverse side of this from the lawn.  That post showing the 10 transplanted ferns is talks about the area where this one is located.  The bulk of those transplanted ferns were planted to the East of the River Birch, so this Lady Fern is going to hang out to the West of the River Birch.  The plan called for "12 Ostrich Ferns" in this area.  I initially

I recently picked up this fern at Home Depot on a whim.  Had no intention of buying a fern, but as I was looking at the hostas, I saw it and thought....hmmm...that green fern is calling to me.  If you've been reading along over the years, you'll know two things: 1.  I'm a shade gardener. 2.  I love ferns. I have a few kinds, but it seems that the two that are consistently successful for me are:  Ostrich Ferns.  And I have one, ignored, but thriving Japanese Painted Fern .  I just recently transplanted ten (10) Ostrich Ferns that I've been calling "Survivor Ferns" from our fenceline to a spot on the plan that called for ferns.  I also have this other fern - that I call our " Teardown Fern " - which came from my sister-in-laws lot before she built her house.  I stuck it in the far back of our lot and it has been doing really quite well .  Ignored for the most part, too. This new fern - pictured above - kinda resembles that "Teardown Fer