3 Easy and Beautiful Ferns for Shady Garden Borders

In today's video I look at three of my favourite small to medium sized garden ferns - Dryopteris erythrosora 'Brilliance', Dryopteris wallichiana and Pteris umbrosa, all amazing evergreen and low-maintenance foliage plants for tricky shady spots and borders. I look at how I use them with other exotic foliage plus to soften hard landscaping helping to create a lush, green tropical jungle garden here in the UK.

0:00 Intro
0:53 Growing Dryopteris erythrosora 'Autumn Fern'
2:53 Growing Dryopteris wallichiana & 'Jurassic Gold' fern
4:33 Pteris umbrosa - Jungle Brake fern care

Thanks,

George

[lawn]

I’m glad Wallichiana is in your top three as it’s my favourite all time fern! They look so lush and tropical!

[shineamen]

Fantastic Dryopteris, so elegant and tough!
Pteris umbrosa do look like a tropical plant indeed! Beautiful shape.
Thank you George!

[claireskrine]

Thanks, I'm currently trying to green up a very shady London garden and was contemplating ferns so this is really helpful.

[maxthecat]

I love ferns. I had a wonderful shuttlecock fern in my last garden, but for some reason they will not grow where I live now, and it's only about half a mile away!! All my other ferns grow really well. I have a copper coloured fern, not sure if it's the same as the one you mentioned, but i have it in a pot in full sun and it grows well. I only put it there for a while when I moved in to this house because I had to clear the garden first. It seems happy, so I left it there.

[colinwilson]

Great video as always George 👏👏 thanks for sharing

[stanleygladstone]

Hi George,
I bought a plant called royal fern. It came through the post so it's fronds were cut down. It looks as though it grows 5 foot plus tall, and I'm really looking forward to see it next year. Great vid keep em coming. Thanks

[tonycastro]

This is great one to look out for. Athyrium Otophorum Okonum for a lightly shaded spot. Foliage is a dark green with red to purple stems. Also mentioned in another post is the Japanese painted ferns to brighten up dark damp areas. Maidenhair ferns also good especially ‘Adiantum Mairisii’ for growing over front of borders. Thanks again for you great weekly videos.

[danwilson]

Great video. I would add Coniogramme emeiensis too, it is similar in needs to the Pteris you mentioned

[marymary]

I’m originally from your part of the world Nth Lincs, I now live in Nth West we have loads of ferns growing wild in the hedgerows. I haven’t yet dung any up, but yes I’m very tempted. Thanks for your inspirational videos George. 👌💕

[oldgold]

Gotta have some Japanese painted fern and osmunda regalia as well

[garygansbrubaker]

T’a for the recommendations.

I would recommend the Herrenhausen. Beautiful fronds and they become more impressive with each passing year. I am planting the Dryopteris affinis today, as I live in Oxford and I have a very high brick wall which blocks a lot of the Sun, as it is located along the Southern Wall where it receives protection from the Winter Gales but also will hopefully fill in the back of my brick wall.

I would also like to learn how to transplant ferns without damaging the plant. Would you please make a video showing how to do this, please? Looking forward to watching your videos.

[saltlifess]

Matteuccia struthiopteris/Ostrich fern is a nice tall fern, extremely hardy

[craigwagstaff]

Ay up George, thanks for getting back to me lve been down Devon for a few days droolin over the echiums and huge palms they can grow down there like weeds😂so lve only just seen your message and fern vid.funnily enough just before we went l split the first fern you featured and made four out of one, l also have the second as well and just split that out of it's pot and put it round a new small pond, one question l do have though is earlier this year l bought two esculenta bulbs one's thrown average sized leaves up and the other absolutely huge leaves, saying that the smaller one has three visible growing points so can l presume l'm goin get baby bulbs?

[phil]

found out this on the Pteris umbrosa....doesn't like temperatures below - 4 degrees C. Nothing on R.H.S about hardyness

[stevenotman]

Can a tree fern be planted in the top of a dead trunk with any success? Tia

[craigrogers]

I've got a Mexican fan palm on the go from seed this summer with 3 or 4 leaves, when mature could it last in the UK? Obviously protecting it now while young.

[ilcorvo]

Ferns are mad. I have an old house with a stone walled back garden and they grow in the cracks of the wall. I leave them as they look great. i have tried transplanting them in the past into high quality fertile soil in a shady area and they promptly died!