Homegrown: Fried Ferns

Even with the recent rain, this hasn't been an easy summer for gardeners.

I've been prioritizing what I water during the drought, and am keeping my fingers crossed for those plants left to their own, including daylillies, hosta and many other perennials.

Linn County Master Gardener, Marti Garrison, posed the same about ostrich ferns:

Are my ostrich ferns just suffering or are they dead? I won't really know until next summer. I was ignoring the big bank of ferns against the fence. I figured that with oak leaf mulch and shade they would make it. But when a friend saw the sad stand of crispy fronds, she advised me to water right away, that crowns can crack apart and die in the heat. Another commented that because they have crowns they should be fine. I decided to pursue this topic. And by the way, I have been watering my individual Japanese Painted Ferns and Ghost Ferns, and they look beautiful.

But what about a large spread of ferns, plants that apparently grow best in moist, shady conditions such as in the Pacific Northwest? How do they do here in Iowa during a drought? A rather lengthy internet search turned up a number of books on ferns, but only a few with statements about Midwestern ferns in droughts.

In Fern Ecology, 2010, authors Mehltreter, Walker, and Sharp, say “There is little information on fern heat tolerance.” They do discuss ferns that tolerate drought and lots of sun. One is “Brilliant Sword.” A second helpful publication is Peterson's Field Guide #10, Ferns and their Related Families of the Northeast and Central North America, by Boughton Cobb, 1963. And another, although written for Northern California, is Bay Area Gardening: Essays by Master Gardeners, ed. by Barbara Euser, 2005. She includes sun and heat-hardy fern choices for the home gardener.

My favorite, although it has a non-scientific slant and an agenda, is Requiem for a Lawnmower: Gardening in a Warmer, Drier World by Wasowski and Shirvanian, 2004. They argue in favor of home gardeners and professional landscapers alike choosing hardy native plants to replace thirsty non-native species.

The tentative conclusion I draw from these publications is that severe drought and all its repercussions opens a new page for us in the heartland. Will we think about planting different kinds of ferns that grow in hot, dry parts of the country, or will we continue to hope that this summer is an anomaly, and next year we will be back to Iowa-normal? It is the same question I ask about turfgrass and certain thirsty perennials and annuals. We just don't know about possible long-term weather changes and how best to adapt. Water usage, utility bills, climate change, and possible global warming affect and are influenced by small choices we make and changes forced on us-such as, what is happening to my ferns in this drought and what can I do about it?