• Their size can vary from tall, statuesque tree ferns with trunks, which make them great feature plants, to tiny fragile-looking plants a few centimetres high.
  • Frond colours include many shades of green to grey or yellow and variegated green and white. Don’t forget members of the Blechnum family and some maidenhairs, the new growth of which emerges in shades of apricot, pink and salmon.
  • Their growth habit. In some, rosettes of leaves rise up from a central crown; others have rhizomes that creep along the ground making them ideal as groundcovers; tree ferns have trunks giving height and stature to the garden and staghorn ferns thrive on tree trunks.
  • Some ferns have been declared aliens or invaders. They include the common sword or Boston fern which has fishtail-like fronds.