Saturday 8 March 2014

ENGLISH LANDSCAPE

I will be attending the Chelsea Flower Show in late May.  The “Great Spring Show” (as it was once labeled), has become an annual pilgrimmage for my family.  As a precursor to this show and as a way to share my enthusiasm for it, I will frequently be writing posts about context, history of the show and providing past designs of show gardens from recent years. Enjoy.
A very young and spry (then) Princess Elizabeth at the Chelsea Flower Show (circa 1949)
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COUNCIL RING

I sat in one of these when I was ten at sleep-away camp in the Catskill Mountains.  Remember thinking it was kind of cool yet primitive.... the counselors who sat amongst us recited old legends and ghost stories.  A blazing fire roared directly in the center of this circle...

The Council Ring was the signature piece in many gardens designed by Jens Jensen, a mid-western garden designer/landscape architect in Chicago in the early to mid 1900s who collaborated with Frank Lloyd Wright and began what is referred to as the "Prairie School of landscape design." He developed the theory of the Council Ring for many public parks and  private estates.  




Jens Jensen saw these stone circles as emblematic of vernacular traditions evoking both the Viking past of his Danish ancestors (where village elders sat on stone boulders in a circle) and of Native American egalitarianism. The Council Ring in the woods about the fire was the original grouping of mankind. When so arranged, we get at once the ancient spirit of the woods--the democratic equalization of responsibility and of honor. Because a group sitting on these stones would be gathered in a continuous circle, there would be no head of the table, no hierarchy, but a simple affirmation that all members of the community are important to it.  In concept, it is reminiscent of King Arthur’s Knights of the Roundtable.

Jensen typically located it in a woodland opening on the edge of a meadow or on a site with a view --it represented a sense of harmony within nature.  As evidenced by my own early experience...council rings serve as a meeting place for conversation, song, dance, storytelling, poetry, and campfires, linking humanity and nature.

For more on this giant of American landscape design follow this link to the Jens Jensen Legacy Project.



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Friday 7 March 2014

When Metaphor Fails


This year, my wife and I made a token attempt to start a garden. We managed to pull ourselves away from the home renovation long enough to carve a perennial border out of a piece of our side yard.

Right now, it looks like a tattered tapestry. Some perennials have established with athletic vigor, while others lie low, perhaps waiting till next year. I’ve seeded the holes in the border with summer annuals, which have quickly taken advantage of their slower to establish neighbors.  The riotous color and size of the annuals have eroded what bit of compositional clarity that initially existed. Weeds run rampant throughout.  Crabgrass, Bermuda grass, and Bindweed dominate the area where we plan to add a stone path and terrace. They control territory like a Mexican drug cartel.  With so little time for the garden, the weeds and I maintain an uneasy détente—they have their territory, and I have mine.

Already I’m making notes about what needs to be changed. Too many filler plants, not enough structural ones. Needs more upright spires. Dot in a few architectural shrubs. Add low, dark-leafed annuals along the edges for contrast. Too many thin, linear masses: re-mass perennials in block-ier, thicker masses. The list grows by the day.

August crushes my idealism. All winter and spring I made pretty pictures of the garden in the soft light of my mind. In May, these images felt almost attainable. But August is the ultimate judge; the glare of the midday sun bears upon me the inescapable force of reality. All prior imaging disappears with the dew. The garden is simply what it is.

Realism is the theme of my summer.  Last month my father went through a complicated open-heart surgery and began a miraculous recovery from a stroke. Seeing him suffer through an intense recovery has also confronted me with a jarring reality. With a recovery like his, nothing goes the way you expect. With every hurdle he overcomes, another battery of complications sprout up. He has faced his recovery with a strength and grace that is indescribable unless witnessed. The man I knew as the sweetest man on earth has proved to be one of the strongest.

It is times like this when reality itself overcomes our ability to process it in words. When tragedy strikes, I find myself instinctively trying to cloak it in metaphor, to find words to distance me from the experience itself. But the firmness and weight of that reality causes metaphor to fail. What analogy is there for watching someone you love suffer?  What platitudes?  I was recently reading an account of a father, writer Aleksander Hemon, who lost his ninth-month old daughter to cancer. During her illness, he described, “Isabel’s illness overrode any form of imaginative involvement on my part. All I cared about was the firm reality of her breaths on my chest, the concreteness of her slipping into slumber as I sang my three lullabies. I did not want to extend myself in any direction but hers.”*

Since my father’s surgery, I find myself directing the affection I feel for him more urgently toward my eleven-month son. It is my way of bridging the distance. As Jude slips into sleep, I brush my fingers across his temple and channel a prayer for my father. It is the only prayer I ever really mean: please, please, please. The precious beating heart in front of me is linked to the precious healing heart of my dad in a sea of my confused, inadequate love.

After my son has gone to bed and the dishes have been washed, I step outside to the garden. The sun is setting, and I make a half-hearted effort to pull a few weeds. For a moment, I squint my eyes and try to recall the image of what I thought this garden would look like. But I can’t remember. All I can see is what is here.

*  The referenced article was written by Aleksander Hemmon, “The Aquarium,” The New Yorker, June 13, 2011, pg. 50.

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backyard landscaping picture

backyard landscaping picture


Have you considered various landscaping ideas for front yard and yard projects? Do you want to move onward but have never found photographs for your landscaping ideas for front yard along with backyard? The particular motivation with regard to healthier, tranquil and comfortable living is actually producing in a very expanding understanding of the value of landscaping to some residence. Your current strategies for property modernizing therefore, should not be restricted inside walls of ones residence, however , should broaden to incorporate your current lawn, yards and backyard dwelling locations.

Landscaping, if effectively organized, properly carried out as well as appropriately loaned will improve the comfort, raise the visual appeal as well as boost the importance of your house. This site "pictures and ideas with regard to front and back lawn landscaping" has been geared up as a want to home owners who require landscaping ideas for front yard and back garden and also need to make the outside with their residences because beautiful so that as comfy because the interiors. The info found on "pictures and concepts for front and rear yard landscaping" will manage to benefit you and your residence! We are right here to help you get the info and perception on how to apply landscaping ideas for front yard and yard to make your own home your personal somewhere warm.

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Need assistance with landscaping ideas for front yard?

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The thing to do is actually hold children council as well as talk more than what you want to perform. Of course, you will end up governed simply by questions associated with cost as well as available place. Draw a strategy of from landscaping ideas for front yard and landscaping ideas for backyards. If you arent fortunate and also have spacious reasons, you probably wont manage to work every little thing into your system - though planning, you are able to build a desire yard steadily through your front yard landscaping ideas.

backyard landscaping picture ideas


backyard landscaping picture designs

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Worlds Largest Flower!

Amorpophallus

Amorpophallus bulbifer
Native to northeast India, this exotic looking tuberous perennial forms a solitary, deep green, 3 parted leaf up to 4 feet in height. The leaf is up to 3 feet across on top of a deep olive green stalk that is spotted silvery green.
The flower inflorescence is up to 18 inches tall and is composed of a hooded spaethe up to 4 inches wide that is pink inside and greenish outside. The spadix is pink.
Hardy north to zone 7a and requires moist but well drained soil in light to medium shade.
Reproduction is from bulblets which form at the major leaf divisions as well as at the apex junction of the petiole.

Amorpophallus konjac ( Devils Tongue )
Native from India to Sumatra; this huge tuberous perennial plant reaches a total height up to 10 feet and has gigantic leaves on top of the thick, leafstalk up to 8 feet tall. The solitary leaf is huge, up to 4 or rarely to 7 feet across. It is deep green, speckled silver and is 3 parted.
The exotic, flower inflorescence is up to 6 feet tall. The deep purple spaethe is deep purple as is the tapering spadix which is up to 22 inches long. The flower stalk is deep purple spotted white.
Requires moist but well drained soil and is the hardiest of the Amorphalluss surviving as far north as zone 5b in light to medium shade.
Small tubers are borne off the stolons produced by the large corm which is up to 10 inches across.


* photos taken on 4th of July @ U.S. National Arboretum, D.C.







* photos taken on 4th of July 2010 in Washington, D.C.





* photo of unknown source on internet



Amorphophallus paeonifolius ( Whitespot Giant Arum )
Native to southern China and Indonesia; this spectacular plant has a huge leaf on a thick stalk that is up to 8 feet in height. The single leaf is 3 parted and light green marbled in silver. The leaf is up to 10 feet across and is composed of many light green leaflets. While often grown for its foliage which lasts from spring until late in summer; its flowers are quite outstanding, hard to describe. The spaethe is cup shaped, up to 12 inches tall and very wide.
The tubers on these plants are huge!
Hardy north to zone 7b and requires light to medium shade on moist but well drained soil in light to medium shade.


* photo taken on 4th of July 2010 in Washington, D.C.



Amorphophallus titanum ( Titan Arum )
This Sumatran rainforest native is only hardy in the tropics from zones 10 and warmer; however where it can be grown it is among the worlds most spectacular flowering plants. Reaching a total size up to 21 x 25 feet making it one of the worlds largest perennials which also has the worlds largest flower; it has a huge solitary leaf up to 21 x 25 feet on a stalk up to 17 feet in height. The leaf is 3 parted and dark green. Each leaflet is pinnate and deeply lobed.
Each year, the old leaf dies and is then replaced by a new one. When the corm has stored enough energy, it becomes dormant for about 4 months. The process then repeats.
The flower stalk is up to 10 feet tall and the spaethe is up to 6 x 4 feet with the spadix being up to 10.
The corms are the largest of any plant, up to 110 pounds or more. In fact sometimes much more, the largest on record was 200 pounds recorded on a plant growing at Kew Gardens, England. While previously extremely rare both in the wild and in cultivation; the Titan Arum is becoming more common due to pollination techniques that make reproduction easier. If I lived in a tropical area and had a small fish pond; you bet I would have a Titan Arum to showcase it. What an awesome plant!

* photos of unknown internet source





* photo found on internet - U.S. Botanical Gardens ( in bloom )



* photo found on internet - Kew Gardens in England ( flower in development )
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Landscape Plant Maintenance Tips

Beautiful landscaping unfortunately does not take care of itself. No matter how much you pay your Landscaper, once your Plants have been installed - you are responsible for the health of your Plants. To keep your new investment looking as good as the day it was installed, it will require time and Plant Maintenance - remember, Plants are living, breathing organisms. Watering and fertilizing your new Plants will keep them growing healthy and strong. Here are some Tips on how to keep your Plants healthy and looking great.

DO NOT solely rely on your irrigation system to handle all of your new responsibilities.

Trees, Plants and shrubs are like people - they need the proper amount of food, water, and care to survive and prosper. Nursery Plants are used to absorbing water and nutrients at the same time every day. They have been watered and fertilized on a routine schedule for several months or even years. Without your full attention once they go in the ground, it would be like someone changing your breakfast, lunch, and dinner schedule, your diet, and portion size all at the same time. You would go through shock too!
To start your Plants on a healthy path, the company adds a slow release fertilizer tablet to each Plant upon installation. This will provide nutrient for the first year. Next, its your turn -your new Plants need to be watered at least 3 to 4 times per week (weather and soil type dependent). Does your soil hold moisture or drain moisture? Water thoroughly at the base of the Plant, soaking the root structure. Do this for several weeks until the Plants have established roots in the surrounding soil. After the first season or one year, watering once per week is recommended (weather and soil type dependent). The best times to water your Plants are early in the morning and late in the afternoon - this helps water to soak into the ground around the Plant before being evaporated by the sun. Watering your Plants during the warmest part of the day is less effective and can burn Plant leaves causing them to wilt and fall off. It is just as important not overwater your Plants. Overwatering can kill Plants just as fast as not watering them at all. Overwatering can also lead to Plant disease. Your investment in landscaping was expensive!...Watch the weather and react accordingly.

Each Plant type has different needs in regards to moisture and soil nutrients, so it is good to research your Plants and learn their needs. For example, Rhododendrons prefer acidic soil. What is acidity level your soil? You may need a different fertilizer for your Rhododendron. In general, fertilizer should be applied to Plants once a year in the spring following the guidelines on the container.

Pruning trees, Plants, and shrubs can enhance their appearance, may promote flowering, and helps keep them healthy. Research your Plant so that you are pruning each Plant at the right time of year.

If you do not have an irrigation system and you are considering one, please visit www.ToddsServices.com.

For all your landscaping needs, pay Todds Services, Inc. a visit and have your home or business a cut that stands out from the rest.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=K_Burkhart
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Thursday 6 March 2014

Tree Damage

Can you spot it?


To a trained eye, a person that knows trees would spot it in an instant! The above photo is taken from a front yard I had designed about 4 years ago. The property looks well maintained by professionals from far away...


But upon closer inspection I noticed some tragic details that were never tended to! The orange arrows say it all!

The tree stakes were left in 4 years after they were planted!!!

When I first drew out the landscape plan and imagined these trees in my minds eye, I never would have imagined this... Was it my fault for not informing the home owners? Or was it the contractors fault for not informing them that something they did once they were planted, needed to come out after the second year of growth!

What you cant see is the wires still looped around the trunk... the tree has now grown into the wires and is causing it to girdle itself. The mass of branches that have developed along the base of the trunk is a survival tactic!

The roots are thriving! Yet the nutrients have no place to go! The tree knows if it is not corrected soon, the top portion above the wires will soon die off and it is ready to start new from the base... any one of those small branches growing from below the wire will take the lead as a "leader branch".

This stands to reason that I should probably visit my landscapes more often... but when you do so many, how can one possibly keep an eye on them all?



I give the landscape maintenance crew an A for effort to make the grounds look good...


but a failing grade is given for not recognizing the need to remove the tree-stakes!!!
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landscaping

Landscaping Tips: Employing Native Leaves
One of the best methods to conserve normal water in your back garden is to alter your landscaping from the standard green grass and rather use a mix of native vegetation and man made grass. East Queensland indigenous flora is especially suited to stand up to our normal harsh local weather, and wont require heavy sprinkling a traditional grass or brought in species can. There are several ways for you to make your yard waterwise.

landscaping

Becoming Waterwise

Around 40 percent involving residential h2o consumption can be spent on outdoor usage. This means our own countrys non commercial water use could be lower nearly by 50 % if homes restructured their particular yards to concentrate on native crops and man-made grass instead of thirsty imports. Only implementing waterwise horticulture techniques can produce a huge difference. Generating your lawn waterwise doesnt mean simply using drought-tolerant plants, both. There are lots of minor tricks you can use to save h2o, from grow selection in order to garden structure and style.

There are several main what to keep in mind so that you can reduce your out of doors water employ: use a lot of mulch, purchase a drip cleansing system, assimilate water storage area products along with wetting agents into the existing garden soil, and use drought-tolerant ancient plants.

Mixing Efforts

The drip cleansing system helps you to save tremendous levels of water above other sprinkling methods. This is enhanced even more by making likely to not normal water during the best part of the evening or whenever rain is within the forecast. Making use of mulch, you may make a dam to maintain water through running away from. This is a smaller amount of an issue when water is shipped closer to your roots via drip sprinkler system. Mulch in addition absorbs far more water when compared with sandy garden soil, so it keeps plant origins moist for the reason that aspect at the same time. If any kind of plants are fighting come the fall, replace all of them with more drought-tolerant kinds.

Creating Hue

Hot sunlight and dried out air are terrible the wetness right out of the garden. Also native crops can benefit from a little bit more shade. This is often provided by way of structures just like arbours or lattice. Coaching creeping plant life to form a cover will add to the shade protect, as well as decrease the speed water evaporation minimizing weed growth. Indigenous trees, for example the Gum Shrub, can also be used to supply garden hue and reduce sun exposure.

landscaping rocks


Planning Native

While planning out your backyard, choose indigenous plants. They may be already correctly suited to the Sunshine Coastline climate, and does not even close your lids at the warmth or reduced water amounts. Some examples contain: Acacia (Wattle), Kangaroo Paw, Hakea, and also native stresses of flax as well as rosemary. The particular Queensland Federal government Department involving Environment along with Resource Supervision maintains a retrieveable database place selector that allows landscapers to search by simply postcode, plant kind and normal water needs to be able to build an ideal waterwise landscape.


Other options

In addition to adding water-conserving drip sprinkler system, adding color to your lawn and choosing indigenous flora, manufactured grass is the one other excellent choice for the waterwise yard. An artificial garden requires zero watering, although still incorporating the green you have come to enjoy in a standard lawn. An all-natural lawn wants careful routine maintenance in order to grow along the Sunlight Coast. For instance, warm time grasses, just like couch and also buffalo, could be cut small in the summer, despite the fact that cool time grasses must be kept extended. Grass should additionally not be minimize by anymore than one-third of the length with any time of year. Artificial your lawn doesnt consist of any of these difficulties, and will help save from a good astronomical drinking water bill on top of that.

landscaping pictures

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Fern Athyrium Painted Lady Ferns

A genus of temperate to cold climate, perennial Ferns with interesting foliage that prefers partial to full shade and light, moist, fertile soils. Deer resistant!
Generally immune to insect pests and disease except for foliage rust which is rare. Plants can be propagated by dividing every 3 or more years during autumn or early spring. Pests and disease problems are rare, however slugs may sometimes occur.

Athyrium alpestre ( Alpine Lady Fern )
A deciduous fern, reaching up to 2.5 x 2 feet, that is native to northern Eurasia and North America ( from western U.S. mountains, Canada, Greenland and Iceland ).
The bipinnate fronds, up to 36 x 10 inches, are bright green.
Hardy zones 1 to 5, requiring a cool climate.

Athyrium asplenioides ( Southern Lady Fern )
May be nothing more than a dwarfer North American variant of Athyrium felix-femina. A moderate growing, slow spreading, deciduous fern, reaching up to 4 x 3 feet. It is a widespread North American native from Manitoba to New Brunswick; south to eastern Texas to Florida. It may eventually form impressive colonies on ideal sites.
The attractive double-pinnate fronds are bright green. The foliage combined well with large blue Hostas.
Hardy zones 4 to 8 in partial to full shade on just about any moist fertile soil. It is easy to grow and even thrives on swampy sites.

Athyrium augustum
A deciduous clump Fern reaching up to 4 x 4 feet and is native to North America from Saskatchewan to Newfoundland; south to Nebraska to Missouri to North Carolina.
Its fronds are up to 36 x 14 inches and a clump can spread up to 3 feet in 5 years.
Hardy zones 2 to 8.

* photo taken on Aug 6 2013 in Stratford, Ontario


rubellum ( Lady in Red Fern )
Luxuriant green foliage contrasts with vibrant red stems. Very ornamental. Otherwise similar to above. Easy to grow and looks great with purple Heucheras.
Same size and growth rate as Athytium augustum.

* photo taken on Aug 18 2013 in Columbia, MD


Athyrium cyclosporum ( Western Lady Fern )
An impressive deciduous Fern native to western North America that reaches up to 8 feet in height even far from its native range in New York State. Hardy north to zone 5

Athyrium filix-femina ( Lady Fern )
An abundant, deciduous Fern with an extremely widespread range in Europe and Asia. It is a deciduous clumper reaching up to 6.6 x 7 ( rarely over 5 ) feet.
The beautiful, fine, lacy fronds up to 72 x 14 inches are leathery, thin and luxuriant medium green. The frond stems are reddish. This Fern produces new fronds continuously throughoutthe growing season.
Hardy zones 2 to 8 in partial to full shade on moist, fertile, acidic soil. Easy to grow and enjoys moist shade. It can tolerate some sun, wet soil and the occasional drought.




* photos taken on June 30 2013 @ U.S. National Arboretum, DC


Fieldiae
Strong growing, reaching up to 2.5 feet with cross-patterned, paired leaflets.

* photos taken on Aug 4 2013 in Bayfield, Ontario


Frizelliae ( Tatting Fern )
A deciduous clump Fern reaching up to 20 x 45 inches.
Its bright green fronds are narrow and reduced to beadlike balls.
Hardy zones 3 to 8

* photos taken on Aug 25 2013 @ University of Maryland, College Park


Rotsteil
Reaches up to 5 x 2 feet with delicate lacy loose fronds.

Setigerum
Reaches up to 20 inches with very slender leaflets.

Vernoniae Cristatum ( Red Stemmed Lady Fern )
A fast growing, deciduous spreading fern reaching up to 4 x 3 feet. The mahogany red stemmed elegant, frilled, deep green, narrow fronds have crested pinnae tips. Hardy zones 4 to 8

Victoriae Tall
A spectacular, deciduous clump fern to 4 feet in height. Its medium green, narrow foliage has pinnae which criss cross forming Xs and having created leaflet tips. No other Fern does this.
Tough and fairly drought tolerant. hardy zones 4 to 9

* photo taken on June 30 2013 @ U.S. National Arboretum, DC


Athyrium x Ghost ( Ghost Fern )
A hydrid between the Japanese Painted Fern and American Lady Fern this is sterile.
It is a tall, deciduous, strong growing, clump Fern reaching a maximum size of 3 x 5 feet with ghostly silvery-gray fronds.
Great as an accent or in large masses in front of dark evergreens.
Hardy zones 3 to 8

* photo taken on May 8 2010 @ McCrillis Gardens, Bethesda, MD




* photo taken on annual Horticultural Society of Maryland Garden Tour


* photo taken on Aug 25 2011 @ Scott Arboretum, Swarthmore College, PA


Athyrium japonicum ( Black Lady Fern )
A deciduous fern reaching a maximum height of 2 feet, that is native to much of eastern Asia.
Hardy zones 6 to 8

Athyrium nipponicum ( Japanese Lady Fern )
A deciduous fern, reaching a maximum size of 32 inches x 3+ feet, that is native to Manchuria, China, Korea and Japan. The triangular fronds, up to 28 x 10 inches, bear pinnae up to 5 inches in length that bear subleaflets that are toothed and deeply-cut.
Hardy zones 4 to 8 ( clones from Manchuria likely hardy zone 3 ) in partial to full shade on moist, fertile, humus-rich, acidic soil.
It often self seeds ( correctly self spores )

* photo taken on June 30 2013 @ U.S. National Arboretum, DC


Applecourt
A deciduous spreading Fern reaching up to 2 x 2 feet. It is similar to the Japanese Painted Fern but has a even more delicate appearance due to the heavy cresting on each Frond. Hardy zones 3 to 8

* photo taken on May 6 2010 @ Brookside Gardens, Wheaton, MD


Branford Beauty
An extremely vigorous but moderate spreading, deciduous Fern reaching up to 3 x 2.5 feet. It is a hybrid between the Lady Fern and the Japanese Painted Fern. It has an upright habit but also the red center variegation of the Painted Fern as well as red stems. Easily self seeds.
Hardy zones 4 to 8

Branford Rambler
A fast spreading, deciduous Fern that forms a dense groundcover that is not invasive.
Its foliage is similar to that of the Japanese Painted Fern but with the stems being more red. It can reach up to 2 x 3 feet.
Hardy zones 4 to 8. Moderately drought tolerant.


* photo taken on May 8 2010 @ McCrillis Gardens, Bethesda, MD





Burgundy Lace
Similar to Pictum but only reaching a maximum size of 2 x 3 feet and with all burgundy new growth. The fronds later turn to purple with silvery stripes.


* photo taken on April 11 2010 @ U.S. National Arboretum


* photo taken on June 23 2013 @ U.S. National Arboretum, DC


Pewter Lace
Moderate growing, reaching up to 2.1 x 2.3 feet with lacy fronds that are intensely silvery-white with a contrasting red-purple midrib.

Pictum ( Japanese Painted Fern )
A deciduous spreading Fern reaching up to 32 inches x 5 + feet after many years; that is one of the most popular landscape Ferns in America.
The spectacular foliage up to 8 inches across is triangular and multicolored deep green, silver gray and burgundy. This Fern continues to send up new fronds all summer and even fall. New plants form nice clumps very rapidly.
Prefers light shade as full sun washes out the color and reduces vigor.
Hardy zones 4 to 9 ( 3 on sheltered sites ).
A separate extremely rare, very handsome giant form is very vigorous, reaching up to 3.5 feet in height.




* photos taken on May 8 2010 @ U.S. National Arboretum, D.C.





* photo taken on May 16 2010 @ Cylburn Arboretum, Baltimore, MD


* photo taken on Aug 25 2011 @ Scott Arboretum, Swarthmore College, PA


Red Beauty
Vigorous, reaching up to 2 x 3 feet with reddened fronds.

Regal Red
Reaches up to 1.5 feet with deep reddish-violet fronds that are edged in glossy silver.

Samurai Sword

* photo taken on May 8 2010 @ McCrillis Gardens, Bethesda, MD



Silver Falls
Reaches up to 2 x 2 feet with silvery foliage. It has more silver in its foliage than "Pictum and that color lasts up to 2 months.

* photo taken on June 1 2010 in Columbia, MD

* photo taken on Aug 6 2013 in Stratford, Ontario


Ursalas Red
Reaching up to 20 x 28 inches with very attractive fronds that are deep maroon red on the inside and silvery white on the outside. Hardy zones 4 to 8


* photo taken on May 6 2010 @ Brookside Gardens, Wheaton, MD







Wildwood Twist
Very vigorous, reaching up to 2.3 x 4.8 feet.

* photos taken on May 8 2010 @ U.S. National Arboretum, D.C.




Athyrium otophorum ( Eared Lady Fern )
A deciduous clumping Fern that is native to China, Korea and Japan; that reaches up to 3 x 3 feet. Very exotic looking, its stems are deep red and the young fronds are bright green to pale silvery later turning glossy gray green to deep green, flat and triangular. The flat, triangular fronds, up to 3 x 1 feet, bear leaflets, up to 3 x 1 inches.
Hardy zones 4 to 8 in partial to full shade on moist, fertile, acidic soil.

Okanum
Reaches up to 2 x 2 feet with narrow bright green fronds.

Atyrium pycnocarpum ( Glade Fern )
Also called Diplazium pycnocarpon. A deciduous fern that is native to moist woodlands in eastern North America from Kansas to Quebec; south to Louisiana to Georgia. The Glade Fern spreads rapidly and reaches up to 4 x 6 ( rarely over 3 x 4 ) feet in size.
The elegant, narrow, 1 pinnate fronds are up to 48 x 12 inches in size.
Hardy zones 3 to 8 in partial to full shade on moist, well drained soil. It is easy to grow.

Athyrium thelpteroides ( Silvery Spleenwort )
Also called Deparia acrostichoides or Silvery Glade Fern. A large spreading Fern to 4 x 3 feet with a rapid creeping rhizome. It is native to damp woods in North America from Minnesota to Nova Scotia; south to Arkansas to Georgia and South Carolina and also eastern Asia.
The double-pinnate fronds. up to 48 x 12 inches in size, are bright green above, silvery beneath.
Hardy zones 3 to 8 in partial to full shade on deep fertile soil.
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