Video - Collecting Fern Spores

Collecting Fern Spores

Timing the harvest is the important first step in propagating ferns
with Nancy Swell

Produced By: Gary Junken

An individual fern can produce spores numbering in the millions, and they're easy to collect from the ones in your yard or even in the wild. The trick is to know when they're immature, too mature, or just right for picking.

Nancy Swell, a Richmond, Virginia gardener and contributor to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden's handbook about ferns, warns that once a frond is picked the spores will not ripen further, so care should be taken in your selection. She will also demonstrate a simple way to separate the tiny dried spores from the chaff.

For more information on starting ferns from spores and a complete list of easy-to-grow ferns, see Nancy's article, "Fern Propagation, Simplified," in the January/February 2000 issue of Fine Gardening (#71).
From Fine Gardening 71

fine Gardening is but one of the published magazines of The Taunton Press. Their web site is a wealth of information. The topic of this post is derived from pages at the web site. We do not post the whole articles here. Highlights with selected pictures may be cited and commented on.

The hyperlink for the article can be found here! The fine Gardening web site is found at: http://www.taunton.com/finegardening/

The information published by The Taunton Press has copyright requirements. They are very generous in allowing reference by way of creating a Web link. There is much information, and we will attempt to focus on that which relates to our northern hardiness zones.

A movable windowsill

A movable windowsill

Though my house has south-facing windows with plenty of light for starting new plants, the windowsills are too narrow to hold a flat of seedlings or the trays of cuttings I root each year. To make convenient shelves for the plants, I bought several inexpensive, height-adjustable ironing boards. They take up very little room, and can be wiped up easily if I spill when watering. I can raise them to windowsill height and set them right against the sill so my plants get all the sun they need.
Ursula Reinhold, Doylestown, PA
From Fine Gardening 17, pp. 10


fine Gardening is but one of the published magazines of The Taunton Press. Their web site is a wealth of information. The topic of this post is derived from pages at the web site. We do not post the whole articles here. Highlights with selected pictures may be cited and commented on.

The hyperlink for the article can be found here! The fine Gardening web site is found at: http://www.taunton.com/finegardening/

The information published by The Taunton Press has copyright requirements. They are very generous in allowing reference by way of creating a Web link. There is much information, and we will attempt to focus on that which relates to our northern hardiness zones.

Propagating pachysandra

Propagating pachysandra

When I decided several years ago to plant pachysandra (Pachysandra terminalis) as a ground cover in two shady spots in my yard, I didn’t run out to the garden center to buy flats of cuttings. I knew from my grandmother that it would be easy to start my own cuttings for free.
With permission from my pachysandra-rich neighbor, I went next door with a laundry basket and snipped off the tips (down to the first leaf juncture) of about 200 to 300 shoots. I brought them home and stuck them, in bunches of 25, into wide-mouthed glass jars filled with water and placed the jars in a shady spot. In three to four weeks, the cuttings had sprouted enough roots to be planted out.

Because the areas that I wanted the pachysandra to cover were large, it took a number of years for me to complete the project. About three times during the growing season, from April to August, I visited my neighbor’s patch and came away with a full basket. Today, thanks to a little bit of effort on my part and my neighbor’s generosity, I have my own thriving pachysandra patches.
Martha McKeon, Sandy Hook, CT
From Fine Gardening 21, pp. 14

fine Gardening is but one of the published magazines of The Taunton Press. Their web site is a wealth of information. The topic of this post is derived from pages at the web site. We do not post the whole articles here. Highlights with selected pictures may be cited and commented on.

The hyperlink for the article can be found here! The fine Gardening web site is found at: http://www.taunton.com/finegardening/

The information published by The Taunton Press has copyright requirements. They are very generous in allowing reference by way of creating a Web link. There is much information, and we will attempt to focus on that which relates to our northern hardiness zones.