Gardendaze

Ferns are notorious for being finicky,  troublesome plants.  Look at them cross-eyed and they wither. They are forever full of brown tips, brown fronds, or just plain dead. Why do we bother?

For one thing, they are lovely. And they provide a lot of leaf textures and varieties.  If you can keep the humidity and temperature correct, they are wonderful plants.

I have too many plants to fuss over ferns but I do grow one with regularity because it’s easy, it’s cool looking, and it’s unusual in its own way: it’s the bird’s nest fern.

That was the plant you saw in my last Wordless Wednesday post–the upright green one on the left that sort of looked like wild romaine lettuce. Here it is again.

But there are other varieties as well.

And this is the reason they call it the Bird’s Nest Fern. The center almost looks as if it has a bird’s nest in it.

These are easy plants that are not overly fussy about watering and don’t need extra humidity.  They will grow just fine in ordinary heated homes.

Filtered bright light–never direct sun–is what you want for these. Try one. You won’t be disappointed.