FERNS AND WILD FLOWERS
“Wood-sorrel and wild violet
Ease my soul’s fret.”
“How I do envy you your bank of Ferns” is the remark made to me almost
daily during the summer months when the green background of our outdoor
fernery looks so pretty as it throws up the colours of the flower-beds
on the little lawn that flanks it. This is the brightest bit of the
whole garden, and its beauty is very largely due to the Ferns. Then
we get talking about Ferns, and everybody says, “What a pity Ferns
are out of fashion.” This is what I think. There was a Fern-craze
about five and thirty years ago, when crinolines were worn, and long
riding-habits, and every drawing-room had its tank of sea-flowers;
but times have changed, and the day of the outdoor fernery is over.
One reason given for its disappearance is what people say is its
untidiness. “We cannot have Ferns near the house, because they look
ragged in autumn and winter.” This is what I am told so constantly, but
do not agree with at all. In the first place, to my way of thinking,
Ferns are picturesque all the year round, not less so when they are
brown and yellow than at the time of their greenest luxuriance, and
hardy Ferns are the very best things in the world for Londoners to
cultivate, because their foliage is so tolerant of smoke-poison, even
in the most aggravated form of it known as “urban fog.” No town nor
suburban garden, however unfavourably placed, need be without its Ferns.
[Illustration: A TOWN FERNERY]
It was against a blank wall facing east, in a brand-new garden of the
suburbs, that our own fernery was started, and turned despair into
delight. This part of the garden had looked so hopeless. What were we
to do with it? We knew that flowers would not bloom there, and yet we
wanted something cheerful to look at, because the door-windows of our
favourite sitting-rooms “gave on to it,” as the French say, and it
would always be in sight. Then some one suggested ferns, and it was
felt at once the right note had been struck. Between the house and the
wall there was chaos for about sixty-five feet; then the bare wall.
Behind that in the next-door garden were an Oak and one or two Apple
trees, that gave some shelter. Beside the house we made a terrace, high
and dry, and planted a Magnolia against the wall, and Rose trees. Then
came a gravel path, and beyond the path we laid a little lawn; this
left room for a four or five-foot border by the wall. Here was to be
the fernery.
Good drainage was secured by digging down and filling up with crocks
and broken tiles and cinders. Then we got together a goodly store of
stones, tree-stumps, and gnarled roots, choosing Oak when possible,
because of all woods it is the least liable to decay. Oak will even
resist damp, though damp is a thing a fernery should never be. That
is the mistake most people make. Ferns want a great deal of water,
but never to be water-logged--always dewy, fresh, and sprinkled. Now
it was time to think about the soil. We got in leaf-mould, loam, and
a little peat, which in those days was easier to get than it is now.
The building up of all these good materials was a pleasant task. It is
so nice to work _with_ one’s gardeners. We cannot expect them to have
the same cultivated tastes as some of ourselves, who have travelled,
and read, and thought, and got out of old grooves; but they can do
the hard work, and are quick to take ideas. Our Fern-bank was not
allowed to be grotto-y. Not a scrap of clinker, nor a flint, nor a
shell--least of all a fossil--was permitted to come near it. We waved
the border up and down in quite irregular fashion with hills and dales
and comfortable crannies to hold the plants when they should come. A
month or two had to pass before we could plant, and this was fortunate
in a way, as things could settle down. We had made the fernery in the
spring, and in the autumn we furnished it--a good time for doing so,
for in the autumn holidays one finds so many treasures to bring home in
box or basket. This was what we did; and besides that, had ordered a
good many beautiful and hardy Ferns from some growers in the south of
England.
I do think this is such a good plan. The more frequented country places
have been so depleted by the careless Fern-hunter and the over-zealous
field-class, that really there are now few wild Ferns to spare.
Whenever I come across any, growing in all their beauty, my impulse is
to leave them, not to take them away, especially delicate Ferns like
Tricomanes, or the Sea or Bladder Spleenwort; nor would I ever rifle
a lake-side of the Royal Osmunda, unless in Ireland, where it might
be growing like a weed. Quite common things we may take a portion of,
with care--not the whole root--the Male and Lady-Fern for instance, the
Blecknums, the Hart’s-tongues from the well-side, and the Polypodies
of the wood and hedgerow. Ferns can be moved and planted with safety
either in spring or autumn. In the garden for dividing and replanting,
we find February the best month.
In making a Fern-bank it must never be forgotten that, though the hardy
kinds stand cold well, they do hate draught. We carried our border
round a little at both ends, and planted shrubs so as to make it quite
a cosy corner. The wall itself had been stocked with climbers--Ivy,
Virginian Creeper, and some Briar Roses and Honeysuckle--the latter not
with the hope of flowers, but for a change of foliage. In October the
brown and yellowing fronds, with green and gold and red and crimson
leaves behind them, are splendid. Our ugly patch is now the best part
of the garden--the flower-beds on the turf a little formal, perhaps,
but always bright either with spring or summer flowers. Both grass
and blossoms are in clover here; they get a sideways benefit from the
constant spraying of the bank, and the close-cut turf grows very fine
and soft, keeping its greenness through the hottest weather.
Has any one noticed the beauty of the growth of fresh young pale-green
Fern-fronds, among the old dark foliage? Sometimes we secure this by
leaving the Fern-bank for a dry hot day or two without much water, then
we give it a deluge over-night. Next day new growth begins to show, and
the fernery, so far from being cross at so much teasing, puts on its
fairest smiles, and looks prettier than ever.
But one of the greatest delights of a fernery in London or suburban
gardens is the opportunity it gives of growing wild flowers. There are
so many of these one longs to have, but there is no room for them. In
the herbaceous border they would be pulled up as weeds, and on the
rockery they would overgrow the other things. What the dear weeds want
is a place where they can rest harmless and unmolested. The outdoor
fernery is their Promised Land; there they are good and happy. Many a
wilding has a home in ours.
Sometimes we wonder how they get there, for generally they are not
of our own planting. Some, of course, are “stowaways”--vagrants that
have travelled with Fern-roots sent from far; others may be wind or
bird-sown--there is no lack of bird-life in suburban gardens. Any way,
the weeds are welcome. Amongst the strangers are Wind-flowers, wild
Hyacinth, Wood-violets, and Celandine. Enchanter’s Night-shade is a
visitor that is inclined to be too pushful, but we like a little left,
to study its life-history as related so delightfully by Grant Allen.
Under the Osmundas there is a carpet of Oak and Beech Fern, but below
the hardy common Ferns we let the Alpine Strawberry run about--how
bright its scarlet berries in the cool green leaves!--and Wood-sorrel,
that most engaging weed, claimed by many as the true Shamrock of St.
Patrick. There is no wild flower more interesting; its triune leaflets
are so sensitive, closing if startled, or if the wind be chill, and on
hot summer afternoons it is amusing to listen for the cracking of its
tiny artillery as the seed-pods burst, to fling their harmless contents
all around.
In very early spring Blue-bells and the constant Primrose find warm
corners on our Fern-bank, and show bright faces sooner than elsewhere.
It is here the “spotted Orchis takes his annual step across the
earth”--why is this plant so walkative? Wood-sanicle is another weed
we allow no one to pull up; it is to us a living lyric of copse and
woodland. Such simple plants are doubly sweet when growing in the small
suburban garden, houses to right of us, houses to left of us, and
houses over the way.
[Illustration: THE OSMUNDA IN MAY]
And now a word or two to those who fear to make a fernery too near the
house. Here is an extract from my garden log-book, written in December
1901: “The Fern-bank against the Ivied wall is looking almost as
well as in August. The plants are simply revelling in the moist still
air. The undergrowth of Oak, Beech, Limestone and Bladder Fern is
gone, and some of the Lady Fern is yellowing, but the Hart’s-tongues
are greener than ever; their bosses show up well, and the Male Fern
and hardy Polystichums and Polypodies are still flourishing, many of
them growing from a centre like gigantic shuttlecocks. The Osmunda is
a little withered, but in its golden yellow stage is very lovely.” The
present prevailing fashion of a lingering autumn and mild December
leaves the Fern-bank beautiful through October, November, and the
months that follow, till the very hard frosts come, which nowadays
is generally not till the days have begun to lengthen. In sheltered
corners many plants are green the whole year round. So things go on
till January, when some few heads are lying low, but even then the bank
is quaintly pretty. February is, I admit, the least attractive month
for the Ferns themselves, but by that time the little lowly flowers
that grow among them are coming up, and a careful look will show how
fast the fronds are spreading and thickening amid the Wood-violets’
gentle blue and the pale stars of the Primrose. May is here the most
amusing month; in their growing-up stage Ferns are funnier than
schoolboys, and more uncouth. How tall and lanky is this pale Osmunda;
he has shot up too quickly, and there is nothing but a little bullet
head at the top of every attenuated stalk. He bends this backwards,
the colour changes, and lo! the round ball opens into the splendour
of branching leaves. Warm rain of a day or two will do this and many
another miracle will it work; the rolled-up, wriggling snakes and
viperlings that hid away in white and woolly fleeces, and seemed so
frightened of coming out too soon, one by one now show themselves to
be the Scolopendriums, Aspleniums, Polypodiums and Polystichums that
were so beautiful last July--it would really be mean to remind them in
summer-time of how they looked while yet unfledged.
The great charm of a fernery, well kept and long-established, is now
forgotten by most, for it is seldom seen. What we do see in many a
London and suburban garden is the extinct or neglected fernery, an arid
spot, most likely under a tree or trees, which have drained every drop
of moisture from the soil. People have such odd notions about Ferns;
they do not discriminate. All kinds are lumped together, and expected
to look after themselves and do all right, if they are given a few
stones or a clinker or two to play with. I do not think under trees the
very best place for Ferns, for the trees get all the moisture. When we
know that one fair-sized Oak tree will draw up as much as a hundred and
twenty-three tons of water in a season, we cannot wonder that there is
not much left to nourish the plants beneath; and then the rain, the
kindly rain that drops from heaven upon the earth beneath, how are the
poor overshadowed Ferns to get that? Speaking generally, all Ferns
like shade and moisture, but different members of the Fern family show
as many individual tastes and likes and dislikes as we should find in
any school or nursery. Some are for the cool depths of the woodland,
some for the breezy heath or open moor; others sun themselves like
chameleons on a dry and stony wall, where they live on nothing but
lime and light; and there are the lake-lovers, who, poet-like, would
sit with their feet in the brook, and gaze at the blue of the sky;
and the mountain-climbers who hide under the slates of Skiddaw; and
the roadside Ferns that grow beneath, and sometimes upon, the bossy
branches of Elms and Oaks. These hardy hedge-haunters were for a long
time the only Ferns that would not grow for us; at last we discovered
the reason why. They will not drink anything but soft water, sooner
would they die.
All the other Ferns I have mentioned live as happily in a suburban
garden as they did in their native haunts, and attain to an even
greater size and luxuriance. They give no trouble, most of them do
not mind hard water, but this is much better if sprayed or sprinkled
than if hosed. Sprinklers can be bought for a shilling or two at any
ironmonger’s shop, and are most useful. Even the Holly fern, and the
Hay-scented, and the pretty _Polystichum-proliferum_ that most people
consider a greenhouse plant, come up every year, punctual as the
morning sunshine, and want nothing but water, and some fresh leaf-mould
to grow into, now and then. Sometimes in the autumn we scatter them
with dead leaves, and always leave the fronds to wither as they will;
no tidying up is allowed. Here Nature holds her sway, and the touch of
wildness in an otherwise well-ordered garden is refreshing.