This week: A Better Than Marginal Wood Fern
Hello!
People love a free native plant, and for me, Marginal Wood Fern (Dryopteris marginalis) was just that—I found it popping up here and there in the shade between my house and my neighbor’s.
If Marginal Wood Fern shows up in your garden, consider yourself lucky because it is a well-behaved, clumping fern that stays relatively small. I’ve never seen one taller than two feet. It is also semi-evergreen to fully evergreen, making an impression long into the winter. It also presents classic fern traits: while it can handle a couple of hours of sun a day, it likes dappled to deep shade. Deer avoid it, and it adds beautiful texture wherever it is planted.
Once you know this fern, you’ll notice it all over Western Pennsylvania. It’s a common fern for woods in the Allegheny Plateau, and it is adapted to grow under our Hemlock, Birch, American Beech, Hickory, and Red Oak forests, and even likes rocky outcrops and cliffs.
If you add it to your shade garden, consider planting it alongside Wild Geranium (Geranium maculatum) and Wild Ginger (Asarum canadense) for contrasting foliage.
Elsewhere:
This week, I took a class in which a native arborist vouched for a cheap, temporary deer fencing hack from Edible Acres, a farm in New York. It (mostly) works for their plantings and is as easy as stringing fishing line along posts at deer and rabbit height. Give it a try if you are on the fence about a more permanent solution.
Have a good week,
Julie