August 21 2008
|
Ferns -
Links 2008 - updated August 2008 - all links working and checked. |
Fern
Nurseries
- UK,
Europe,
North America, Thailand |
| Fern Nurseries - UK |
Fernatix -
in 2004 they have exhibited for the first time at Chelsea and
Hampton Court - Gold at both and deservedly -
well illustrated, interesting catalogue with a wide range of species
and varieties (mail order). Steve and Kerry continue with Gold medals whever they show. Look at their stands and you can understand why. They often have some really interesting unusual ferns for sale at the shows. |
| World of Ferns. The UK's leading specialist fern nursery with the widest range of ferns including tree-ferns in Europe. A long-established business (formerly Rickards Hardy Ferns) based near Bangor in North Wales in the foothills of the Snowdonia mountain range. Directors Ben Kettle and Jennie Jones run the nursery with retired director Dick Hayward helping out by doing what he likes best - propagating ferns. They are working hard to build on their reputation of being the number one fern nursery by providing the highest quality plants and excellent service. (Carreg-Y-Fedwen, Lôn Rallt, Pentir, Bangor, Gwynedd LL57 4RP - +44 (0)1248 600385; mobile +44 (0)7875 093352 (mail order and online ordering but really worth making the effort to visit). |
Long
Acre Plants - wonderful range of ferns, some very rare
- also specialising in shade loving perennials - wonderful
nursery (mail order). |
| Fibrex Nurseries Ltd. - excellent selection of ferns, some very rare, including Polystichum setiferum varieties, Asplenium, Polypodium and the crinckley 'Mount Omei' variety of Woodwardia unigemmata (mail order). |
Fir
Tree Farm Nursery - nice selection of some unusual
hardy ferns (01326 340593)(mail order). |
| The Fern Nursery - a wide range of ferns. |
| Plantessential - a general range of ferns and cyclamen. |
Trevena
Cross Nurseries - mentioned as a source of
Blechnums in the Garden - Plant Profile, by Martin
Rickards p.178-181, The Garden. 130 part 5 March 2005 - excellent
article. |
| Forest Ferns - a new online nursery specialising in some unusual tree ferns such as Cyathea dregei. Most ferns are spore raised. The website exists but they do not sell any of their ferns. |
| Rumsey Gardens - a traditional nursery and plant centre. They have a wonderful selection of Polystichum setiferum varieties, some very rare. What comes as a real surprise is the size and quality of these ferns as I am used to small plants whenever I buy mail order. Amazing and they are to be congratulated on the quality of their ferns. |
| Crawford Hardy Ferns - Specialist nursery for hardy ferns and tree ferns |
| Ivycroft Plants - ferns, snowdrops, herbaceous alpines - interesting list of Polypodiums. |
| Monksilver Nursery - hardy British and foreign ferns. |
| Urban Jungle - a few ferns, one or two interesting ones. |
| Pan-Global Plants - a selection of 39 ferns. |
| Burncoose - another nursery listing one or two interesting ferns at a good price. |
| Binny Plants have a nice selection of hardy well grown ferns, some unusual - Adiantum chilense and Polystichum tripteron. |
| Bentley Plants - a small, one-man, horticultural nursery that specializes in growing Ferns (nice selection including nice Blechnum species and Lophosoria), Shrubs and Japanese Maples. |
| Seagrave Nurseries - good prices for Dicksonia antartica of various lengths. |
| Dryad Nursery, Tockwith, York - specialises in bulbs with an interesting list of Polypodiums - but only available on open days for the National Garens Scheme. |
| Where to see ferns - the British Pteridological Societies guide to fern gardens, collections and nurseries (UK). |
| Shady Plants Fern Emporium - some very interesting ferns on this ebay site, same firm as the Irish nursery with the same name below, but with a greater choice and better prices. Check this one out. |
Dr's
Levers, Aberconwy
Nursery, Address: Graig, Colwyn Bay, LL28
5TL, Conwy, Tel. 01492 580875, Tel./Fax. 01981 240419. If you
want Polypody cultivars, Woodwardia unigemmata and Cheilanthes,
this is the nursery. Also they are specialists and cultivate
an enormous range of choice, rare and popular alpines and shrubs
(no web site, no mail order). Very reasonable prices. |
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| Fern Nurseries - Europe |
| Gärtnerei Schoebel - another German nursery with a good range of ferns. |
| Stauden Junge - an excellent fern selection, equaling or better than British fern nurseries! (look on the left hand side for the Farne link). |
| Firma Dirk Wiederstein - specializing in hardy ferns with an online shop - impressive range of Polystichum, Dryopteris species and varieties. |
| Nursery de Hessenhof - nice selection of ferns, one or two quite unusual - follow links through to ferns. |
| Catalogue des Fougères - excellent French Nursery including a wide selection of ferns. Many however are tender Zones 8,9,10. |
| Dicksonia Direct - this nursery in Eire (Dublin) seems to be the source of many of the UK rare ferns. They import direct from Chile, Australia and New Zealand - expensive. |
| Shady Plants-Fern Nursery - a new nursery which is in its infancy. A very nicely designed website and at the moment just a general range of varieties are available. However some unusual ferns will be sold in the near future grown from spore. |
| Plantnavigator - you can search for any fern genus and its species available in mostly German and Dutch nurseries - ferns. |
| Plantago - lists of Dutch and Belgian nurseries - useful for finding nurseries specialising in ferns. |
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| Fern Nurseries - North America |
Foliage
Gardens - Ferns - a fascinating site with lots
of information about ferns, but export to Europe is difficult and
expensive - pity! |
| Fancy Fronds Nursery - why I have not included this world famous fern nursery until now, goodness knows? - it is so easy to forget especially as there was no order to this links page. Now you can see that there is a more order to try to make sue such omissions do not occur. The 'Rickards' of America, what more is there to say? Again the only shame is that there is no export of their ferns to Europe. |
| Fern Source Details - the details for a list of nurseries created as a resource for obtaining fern plants. |
| Ferns - a mail-order list of garden companies that specialise in ferns. |
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| Information on Ferns |
| Life cycle of ferns |
| Ferns - good account of the life-cycle and information on ferns in general. |
| Alternation of generations - a straightforward simple account. |
New
Zealand Plants including bryophytes, ferns - amazing
3D animated life cycle of the fern - excellent site - a must
see! |
| Life cycle of ferns - together with details about sporangial development, spore types and sporangial types. |
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| Identification of ferns |
| A new website devoted to Ferns in Britain and Ireland - an ongoing project intended to assist with the identification of British and Irish ferns in the wild. |
| The Plant Crib of the Botanical Society of the British Isles is intended to help experienced botanists identify some of the more difficult groups of plants in Britain & Ireland and in this case - ferns. |
| Hardy Fern Library - identifying ferns - interesting site. |
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| Nomenclature, evolution, phylogeny |
Index
Filicum Data - part of IPNI - the International Plant
Names Index - an index to the names of ferns and fern allies. |
| The Horticultural Nomenclature of Ferns - how to correctly name fern cultivars and varieties by Peter G. Barnes(pdf download). |
| NCBI Taxonomy Browser - a national resource for molecular biology information, NCBI creates public databases, conducts research in computational biology, develops software tools for analyzing genome data, and disseminates biomedical information - interesting section on Filicophyta |
Fern
ID - the Ferns Identification Database - good source
of information on British Fern Nomenclature. |
Fern
Database - in German. |
Fern
Resource Hub. San Diego Fern Society providing an international
source of fern related information for the fern hobbyist. |
| The Fern Pages - a guide to Pteridophytes: the ferns and their allies. |
| Field Systematic Botany Pteridophytes - a good overview of what Pteridophytes really are. |
| Natural Perspective: Ferns (Filicinophyta) - again an overview of the evolution of ferns. |
The
Ferns (Filicopsida) of the British Isles by L. Watson
and M. J. Dallwits. |
| Tree of Life web project - phylogeny of leptosporangiate ferns - excellent resource. |
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| Individual genera |
| The Polystichum website - web home for Holly Ferns. |
| The Cultivated Species of the Fern Genus Dryopteris in the United States - good descriptions and cultivation notes on some 50 species.. |
| Rod Hill's Treefern Page - TREEFERNS DOWN UNDER is a site devoted to the numerous treefern species (mainly Cyathea and Dicksonia) of Australia, New Zealand and neighbouring regions. |
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| Fern Pictures |
| Plant Images of Maarten Christenhusz - part of the Botany Photos website - excellent. |
Ferns
et al. of New England and Bermuda - good collection of
photographs. |
| New Zealand Fern Pictures - comprehensive selection of thumbnails. |
A
checklist of World Ferns - a portal to web-pages listing
all the species of fern-allies and ferns of the world. |
| Scanned fern images - not actually pictures but scanned images of British ferns. |
| BioImages - The Virtual Field-Guide(UK) - Pteridopsa(Ferns). |
| Internet Portal for winter hardy exotics - including ferns - some good photographs. |
| An interesting collection of fern photographs from France 'Le jardin de fougeres par Lothar Denkewitz chez Ulmer'. |
| The Aspleniums of Maraconesia - Andrew Leonards excellent photographs of these ferns in their native habitats. |
| Another selection of ferns by Andrew Leonard growing in Madeira. |
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| Fern Discussion Groups |
Fern
Forum - new discussion group on pteridophytes (ferns),
German based, but English contributions as well. |
Fern
archives - from hort.net. |
| British Pteridological Society Fern Forum - The Fern Forum for the discussion of ferns and other pteridophytes. |
| uk-ferns - FERNS - the British ferns group which is open for the discussion of all aspects of fern cultivation. |
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| Personal websites |
Otto
und Moni Gansses excellent German website with details
of bamboos, hostas, ferns and exotics he grows near Frankfurt.
Even though
the text is in German, don't let that put you off - the photographs
and latin names are universal. There is a wide range
of interesting and rare ferns. |
Rosi's
Farngarten -
another fascinating and excellent fern site in German, very
professional photographs and a very comprehensive CD ROM
of fern species both in German and in English, will
soon be
available. Rosi Möller is responsible for this. |
| Kirstins Bregner - June 2006 - looking at the Irish version of Google and typing in ferns (to see if there are any fern nurseries in Ireland) did this wonderful fern website 'appear'. In Danish, the website gives detailed descriptions, keys and photographs of northern temperate ferns and their varieties. Information on raising ferns and a CD ROM are given. Kirstins has been interested in ferns from the 1950's and this is reflected in the wealth of knowledge on this site - look at the sections on Polystichum and Polypodium. |
| In the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl - a nice section on ferns growing in a garden near Puget Sound. This gardening website has become rather useful as a reference source, with special value for the Pacific Northwest or in expressing the care of plants that grow nicely in USDA Zone 8 (Sunset 5) |
| Peter Barnes Botany Website - interesting informative pteridophyte section with information on Japanese and Albanian ferns. There is also a useful section on the correct naming of fern cultivars. |
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| Culture from spores, growing ferns |
| Propagating ferns from spores - an useful account of the techniques employed by the new British fern nursery, Forest Ferns. |
| Another website giving details of growing ferns from spores. |
| RHS - Horticultural Techniques - 'Frond thoughts' - Alan Toogood gives details how to increase stocks of ferns by sowing spores and outlines a range of other techniques. |
| Fern propagation from spores - good account (Australian). |
| Technique of collecting spores - in a state for yourself for storing or for spore exchanges. |
Cold-hardy
Tree Ferns - a source of information for those of us
in USDA zones 9a or colder about how to grow tree ferns. |
| Ferns -in this site you can learn in a general way all there is to know on most fern species, how much water they need, whether you can plant them in your garden and whether they are evergreen, etc. |
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| Fern Books to download |
| Fern Prints by John Sowerby, also by Edward Lowe - buy them individually ( but who is destroying old books!). |
| Project Gutenberg's The Fern Lover's Companion, by George Henry Tilton - a free e-book for you to download - the Internet at its best! |
| The Ferns of Great Britain and Ireland by Thomas Moore ed. John Lindley 1855 - it is here for you to browse and download - amazing! |
| A selection of books on Ferns that are out of copyright for you to download including some classics. The first two pages have relevance. |
| Although at first sight the book by 'My Garden' Alfred Smee (1872) has little do with ferns, there is a chapter on his fernery. Read this and realise how knowledgeable were the Victorians on Pteridophytes. The range of ferns grown were far more extensive than those grown today. It puts us to shame. |
| New Zealand Ferns Book - was created by Eric Craig, of Princes St, Auckland in 1879 - fascinating. |
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| Fern Societies |
Fern
World WW. -
the British Pteridological Society - articles and information
on ferns. |
The
American Fern Society - excellent information on ferns
with discussion group and links. |
The
Hardy Fern Foundation - formed to seek out the many rare
and unusual species as well as hybrids and varieties to be
propagated from spore. |
| Fern Society of Victoria, Australia - The Fern Society of Victoria was formed in 1979 and has a membership of about 150 enthusiastic and mainly amateur fern growers. |
| Fern Society of South Australia - To acquire the knowledge of habitats and the natural distribution of Australian ferns, with the aim of preservation. |
| Schweizerische Vereinigung der Farnfreunde (Switzerland) |
| Los Angeles International Fern Society - The Los Angeles International Fern Society was formed to provide a source of information on ferns, to arrange for people to study ferns and to encourage the use and enjoyment of ferns. |
| Austin Fern and Cycad Society - promoting interest and propagation of cycads and ferns. |
| San Diego Fern Society - has designed this site to provide an international source of fern-related information for the fern hobbyist. |
| Tampa Bay Fern Club - a group of lovers and growers of ferns. |
| Texas Gulf Coast Fern Society - Organized in 1998 by a group of fern enthusiasts (a.k.a. fern lovers, fernies, pteridologists), to cultivate, foster and promote interest in ferns and fern allies, the TGC Fern Society presents educational programs including “how to” sessions, presentations by local, national and internationally known fern experts, and field trips and tours-thus providing a forum for fern enthusiasts to visit, learn, share plants, ideas, information. |
| The Delaware Valley Fern and Wildflower Society - The purpose of the DVFWS shall be to encourage the enjoyment of ferns and wildflowers by cultivating and propagating them in the home garden; by studying them in their wild habitats, gardens, and conservatories; by promoting their conservation and preservation, and by providing a forum for the exchange of information and expertise. |
| Tropical Fern & Exotic Plant Society Miami, Florida - We are a plant society dedicated to collecting and cultivating tropical ferns & exotic plants. |
| Connecticut Botanical Society - excellent fern section with common names (applicable to the USA). |
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| Bits and pieces that do not fit into the above |
| AGM Award of Garden Merit - Ferns, seems a bit out of date now and some of the awards seem questionable. |
| Fern as Herbs - interesting site giving a comprehensive overview of the herbal use of pteridophytes. |
| Gaurdian Weekend article on ferns - 'Just good fronds'. Sleek, sculptural ferns are the perfect plants for a modern look by Dominic Murphy. |
| Alien Ferns in Hawai'i - amazing range that have become quite aggressive aliens in some cases (around 33 species). |
| La Fougeraie - descriptions and search facility to find out what fern species are most suitable to your own garden (in French - Belgium). |
| Flora of Taiwan - Vol. 1 - pteridophytes and Gymnospermae - descriptions, line drawings and some photographs. |
| fernSiam - fern and plant communities in Thailand - some english text, but the pictures and latin names shows what we are missing! Could these be grown in the UK? |
Ferns
of Canberra Region - about the wild ferns in this part
of south-eastern Australia: where they grow; their ecology;
with many photographs and detailed descriptions. |
Ascog
Hall Victorian Fernery and Gardens - details of a rare
sunken Victorian fernery restored to its former glory in
1997, just a stones throw from Glasgow on the island of Bute
in the Clyde estuary - famous for its Todea barba. |
| The Ferns of the Montreal Botanic Gardens - a lot of information, culture, their own collections etc. (in French). |
| Pteridophytes: Ferns and Fern Allies - a lot of information, excellent bibliography of fern books. |
| The indigenous Ferns of Quebec - good set of photographs and descriptions. |
| Interesting collection of fern pictures 1 and 2, from a Japanese website. |
| A French fern site, Fernatic, full of interesting information on ferns both native and garden grown. |
| List of ferns growing at Attadale Gardens, Wester Ross. |
| Details of the discovery of Cystopteris diaphana, new to the British Isles. |
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''We
steal as in a castle, cock-sure; we have receipt of fern-seed,
we walk invisible'. Shakespeare's, Henry 1V, Act 2, scene 1,
lines 95-98. |
