Get thee to a fernery

At last it's MAY! No question about it: the best month of the year. Monty Don remarks in his Ivington Diaries: "when I die I shall go to May" and in my imagination too it's close to heaven. Another garden writer (I think it was Frank Ronan) claimed that all our efforts in the garden the rest of the year are some sort of attempt to reproduce the perfection that is May... and I think he might be right. (As an aside, apologies to those of you who have clicked the links above and found them almost useless - you'll have to take it up with the venerable authors themselves; as of today, neither site is very informative. You'll also find both authors on wiki).

Much as we might try though, the achingly fresh greens we see at this time of the year can never be repeated: the lime green of horse chestnuts, the bronzy green of new oak leaves, but most of all that startling bright green that looks best when the newly minted oak, beech, sycamore and (finally!) ash trees are lit by the sun and stand out against the backdrop of what my Da used to call a 'haymaker'. Haymakers are those heavy bruised-purple clouds, the colour of bilberries, carrying serious rainshowers that will soak the ground, bring out the early summer scents and will clear away leaving behind bright clean air, vivid colours and sunshine. Sometimes, as a bonus, they allow godbeams to shine through. I'm writing about this today, not because I've seen any May haymakers yet, but because I know I will...

In fact a mixture of bad weather and bad luck with health at the moment have meant there hasn't been too much out and about-ing, so we're firmly grounded in erica's garden this week.

First off, the ferns! They're doing the May thing, in spades... I have to confess I don't have their names (I think I've said before I'll never make a committed plantswoman or collector), but have a look anyway. All of these are under the witch hazel in my back garden and very happy they are too.

Eh... a fern

And a fossil fern
(a well-chosen gift, thanks B)

I started growing ferns for a few reasons. The first, and best, is that I love them. I like that they're ancient plants: pre-dating the angiosperms (or flowering plants) and so reproducing not by seeds but by spores, carried in sporangia that form lines, cups or clumps on the back of the fronds later in the year. I love the huge variations in texture and even, yes, in colour, especially now as they unfurl. Look at the ruddy fiddleheads on that first fern and the sharp bright green of the satiny hart's tongue. And what about the baroque finery of the tatting fern, the almost metallic sheen of the Japanese Painted Fern and finally the cool elegance of the Adiantum (bottom right).

Athyrium filix-femina 'Fritzelliae' Irish tatting fern

Phyllitis sp. Hart's Tongue

Athyrium niponicum, Japanese Painted Fern

Adiantum sp.

The second reason I started to grow ferns years ago was that I wanted to grow hostas, but because I have the most voracious slugs in the county and I don't wage chemical warfare, there was no point. I didn't much care for the 'lace' effect wrought on the hostas overnight by hungry slugs, as opposed to the quilted effect that they were supposed to have.

And so I opted for ferns, which the slugs steer clear of, and which also provide a gorgeous foliage effect.  I now grow one gorgeous hosta in a pot where I can limit the damage somewhat, and if it gets too tatty I can hide its (and my) shame by simply moving the pot. My fern 'collection' started with three small ferns (including the hart's tongue and tatting fern) that cost about €2 each. I've since added some other beauties as I find them hard to resist. I caved in and bought one tree fern about four years ago (from Mount Venus, where else?), but that astonishingly cold winter in 2010-11 did for it...

Ferns, Solomon's Seal and Bleeding Heart

Ferns are beautiful, reliable and happy to rub shoulders with other woodlandy plants without making any fuss. They're tough, and will take dog's abuse (literally: the ferns I have were regularly trampled by two labradors for years; I'm sure a lightfooted schnauzer now poses few problems). All in all, what's not to like?

Enkianthus sp., grateful and graceful

Complementing those ruddy fiddleheads and the pink flush on some nearby Tellima, the Enkiathus that I moved into the ground from a pot last autumn has shown its gratitude rather nicely. It wasn't very happy in the pot, where I'd had it because I didn't know where to place it. But then I saw Enkiathus growing very happily as an understorey plant in Mount Usher gardens and made a mental note to move it later on. For once I remembered!


And in with all the ferniness, the False Spikenard is now starting to bloom frothily and it fills the air around it with a beautiful scent in the evening - a scent that still lingers in the early morning when Iz and I return from our walk.  You may remember this plant got a mention in an earlier post when it was just starting to grow. And here it is now:

Smilicina racemosa, False Spikenard, starts to bloom 04 May

Finally, although we didn't get out walking or hiking this week, here's a video of a small waterfall in Glendine, Co Antrim, taken on my phone in May last year when we were walking there. It comes with birthday wishes for two keen hikers on two different continents: Happy Birthday MM and BL

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River in Glendine from Erica cinerea on Vimeo.