In his book 'The Book of British Ferns', Charles Druery wrote ?It is really astonishing how few people, even among plant-lovers, are aware that in our British ferns and their varieties we have something absolutely unique in the world and unparalleled anywhere outside of our little group of islands?.
Often, peoples' awareness of ferns goes little or no further than the notoriously invasive 'bracken' (Pteridium aquilinum) that hosts sheep tick and is carcinogenic in both plant and spore. When plant lovers have difficulty in putting anything in those hard to fill areas of the garden such as shady, damp, even continuously wet or boggy areas, the thought of using ferns frequently doesn't occur. Yet ferns are so diverse that there are types that will accommodate desert conditions to deep wet shade to growing in/on walls and trees and almost any situation imaginable given a few basic conditions. After the world wars, there was a public appetite for luxury and glamour as a natural reaction to the austerity of the war years. This was appetite was often fed by means of a weekly treat to the cinema for the majority with little money but who could experience a sense of luxury vicariously via the images of Hollywood stars and productions of the day. I think at least to some extent a similar kind of thing may be also true today. Flower colours have gradually become brasher and more exotic by way of import and breeding. Maybe this time feeding the need to emulate the visions experienced on holidays abroad rather than as a reaction to the austerity of wartime already mentioned. Our own native flora has often been sidelined as a result of the need for the 'promise' or recollection of the exotic and the luxury of warmer climes.
Gone are the majority of our floriferous meadows (thanks to too much of the ravages of 'supermarket' farming techniques etc!) and hence much of the love of our native flowers as too the majority of our native ferns. It's been said that maybe less than a third of our native fern varieties still exist. However many still do exist.
So this is a little plea to anyone who doesn't have at least one ? why not give a fern a chance. Admittedly, you can't just stick a fern in anywhere and expect it to flourish, though some may. But just a little effort to establish where it needs to be, or better, taking a little time to find out which fern will enjoy the conditions of the spot that you want to fill will reward with a beautiful and fascinating plant whose family history goes back over millions of years, well before dinosaurs and flowering plants appeared on the earth's surface.
The Royal Fern (Osmunda regalis) to name but one is readily available from nurseries and will luxuriate if you have a shady wet/damp space where little else will grow happily and it will even do well in sunlight if there's an adequate supply of water by a stream or pond. The family Osmundaceae is an isolated and primitive group with no close relations. Fossils of the family are known from as far back as the Permian (290-248 million years ago), while modern Osmunda fossils have been found in Upper Cretaceous sediments (up to 65 million years ago). Further to their fascination, each 'fern' goes through two quite separate stages in it's intriguing life cycle the nature of which most of us aren't even aware of.
