Story oF A FERN GARDEN 85 
also very hardy and very easily grown. It is also a 
remarkably handsome fern and should be in every 
collection. 
To sum up, there are over forty species of New Eng- 
land ferns and several Dryopteris hybrids growing in 
my garden, most of them doing quite well. 
EXPERIMENTING.—The enthusiastic amateur in start- 
ing a fern garden is at first strongly tempted to experi- 
ment with a number of the rarer rock ferns, such as 
Asplenium viride, Pellaea atropurpurea, Asplenium 
pinnatifidum, ete., ferns that are extremely difficult to 
grow. The results are practically sure to be very dis- 
appointing, although there is some pleasure in having 
them growing in one’s garden even for a short time. 
n my opinion, however, it is much more satisfactory 
to confine one’s attention to the ferns that are sure to 
do well in the particular section where the fern garden 
is located. 
TRANSPLANTING THE FreRNns.—Success in transplant- 
ing ferns from the woods to the fern garden depends on 
several important points. First and most important, 
the roots must be disturbed as little as possible. In 
digging most of the big ferns, such as the Osmundas, I 
used a grub hoe with a sharp edge, and also a long- 
handled spade. I dug deeply and sufficiently far away 
from the plant to take up plenty of soil and to disturb 
the roots little, if any. Aside from not disturbing the 
roots, this has the added advantage of bringing to the 
garden with the fern, plenty of the material in which 
it was growing and thus reproducing, to a large degree, 
the conditions of its native wood. The early spring is 
the best time to transplant, and the plants should, if 
possible, be taken just as the crosiers are unrolling. 
‘The ground at that time is cold and full of moisture, 
and ferns transplanted then hardly seem to feel the 
change at all. 
