Fern favourites

They were eaten by dinosaurs and obsessed over by the Victorians, but despite their lively history, ferns are plants that are often overlooked. Perhaps it’s the lack of flowers or their love of shady places, but whatever the reason, ferns aren’t generally seen by gardeners as a “star” plant. Unless, of course, you happen to have a woodland garden or are a member of the British Pteridological Society (also known as the BPS or Fern Society).

The BPS was founded in the Lake District in 1891 and is still a focal point for fern enthusiasts throughout Britain. Later this month the society is teaming up with the Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh (RBGE) to stage a Ferns & Fossils weekend aiming to draw back the curtain on the mysterious world of ferns.

“The UK has around 70 species of ferns and any woodland you go to will have a lot of ferns – you’ll probably find half a dozen species,” says Heather McHaffie, BPS member and Scottish Plant Officer at the RBGE. “People’s perception is that they’re hard to identify because they look similar, but it’s really not hard once you get to know them.” She explains that the Ferns & Fossils weekend will be all-encompassing, mixing education with gardening.

The John Hope Gateway’s Real Life Science Studio at RBGE will be transformed into a celebration of ferns, including a timeline so that people can see where fossils and dinosaurs fit into the story. There will be microscopes set up to examine the secret world of ferns, dinosaur and fern dioramas for children to make, demonstrations of how to grow ferns and a series of talks covering such topics as the Victorian craze for ferns and ferns to grow in your garden.

The ferns we see around us are descended from some of the oldest plants on the planet and have been found as fossils dating back nearly 400 million years. “Ferns have always been a bit of a mystery,” says McHaffie. “With no flowers or seeds, it was a long time before people realised how they reproduced. A mature fern has two sets of chromosomes, but a spore has just one set. The spore grows into a tiny green thing and at different stages these produce male and female parts, then fertilisation takes place. It’s like magic, really.” At the Ferns & Fossils weekend there will be demonstrations of how to grow ferns from their tiny, dust-like spores and McHaffie says that as long as you provide the correct sterile conditions with moisture, growing ferns yourself is an achievable goal.

One of the glasshouses at RBGE is home to ferns from around the world. Tall-growing tree ferns from the montane cloud forest of Australasia provide shelter for other delicate species. The giant horsetail is also housed here (because it is as invasive as the garden species, it is contained in a concrete planter). In all the RBGE has more than 300 of the world’s 15,000 species of ferns, horsetails and club mosses in cultivation. “Edinburgh is a bit dry and too far east to have the best ferns but there are lots more at the gardens at Dawyck,” says McHaffie. “At Benmore you’ll find the restored fernery and at Logan there are fantastic tree ferns.”

Ferneries became popular in British gardens from the middle of the 19th century, fuelled by the Victorian enthusiasm for exotic plants. Benmore Fernery was built at the height of this craze by James Duncan, a Greenock sugar refiner, when he acquired the 48-hectare Benmore Estate. The fernery reopened in 2009 after extensive restoration and it is home to endangered native species and has been landscaped inside and out with ferns from around the world.

The Victorian craze for ferns went beyond the plants themselves and inspired many different aspects of everyday life. “The Victorians used ferns as a theme to decorate glass, china and even gravestones,” says McHaffie. “They appealed because they are frilly and ornate and lend themselves to being very decorative.” A collection of ferns was seen as a way to demonstrate your wealth, status and good taste, and if people couldn’t afford a fernery they might display the plants in their drawing room in a Wardian case. The combination of improved transport links and a growing interest in natural history meant that before long people were flocking out into the countryside on fern-collecting trips.

“They were so popular that, unfortunately, species such the Oblong Woodsia and Killarney bristle fern were almost annihilated in some areas as people would just dig them up,” says McHaffie.

Luckily times changed and today’s fern enthusiasts don’t go around helping themselves. Beyond the RBGE and its associated gardens there are a number of venues around Scotland with excellent fern collections. The restored Victorian fernery at Ascog Hall on the Isle of Bute is a must-see and at Brodick Castle Garden on the Isle of Arran there are plenty of exotic species including tree ferns, impressive specimens of Athyrium filix-femina “Victoriae” and native species in the country park. Glasgow’s Botanic Gardens is home to the National Collection of Tree Ferns, while the Hermitage, near Dunkeld, is a good venue for seeing native species of fern via a woodland walk on the banks of the River Braan.

If you’re keen to introduce ferns into your own garden, there will be plenty of advice available at the Ferns & Fossils event. McHaffie explains that the varieties have huge diversity in terms of size, shades of green and even with regards to their fronds, which vary from forked to frilly. “Some ferns grow in walls and there are little ones that grow in rockeries and like sunny conditions,” she says. “They’re not just for shady spots but they are very happy growing in shade and they enjoy wet places. They are really quite adaptable.”

While we might not see a return of “pteridomania”, McHaffie hopes that the event will encourage people look at ferns in a new light, saying “ferns aren’t as appreciated as they might be, so the message is that ferns are fabulous”.

The free Ferns & Fossils event is at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh on Saturday 24 and Sunday 25 September. For more information tel: [phone] or visit www.rbge.org.uk