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Gardening with Galligan: Ferns as background for houseplants

 

CAROL GALLIGAN PHOTO One of my sprengeri.
CAROL GALLIGAN PHOTO
One of my sprengeri.

Now that we have chosen our blooming plants, along with our color scheme, we have one final step to take. Color is lovely but it needs a backdrop and that backdrop should be green.

There is more than one candidate for non-blooming green, but try to choose a plant that can adjust itself to once-a-week watering. This leaves out a number of favorites, especially one of mine, which I have never been able to grow successfully, and that’s the maidenhair fern.

This is a lovely plant that needs to be kept “evenly moist.” Just those words are enough to drive a normal person mad. How could anyone in a heated house in winter keep anything “evenly moist?” I consider it a sign of my increasing maturity that I have given up on maidenhair ferns and suggest that you do the same.

Choose something easier.

I have two recommendations. One is for — I won’t use the word “fussy” — but rather “particular” housekeepers, and one for the more slovenly set, in which I include myself. This latter choice is the asparagus fern, also called sprengeri. I have several and they do very well.

Their major drawbacks are twofold; they have thorns and so when carrying them to the sink to water, it’s best to wear long sleeves. Removing dead stems also requires care and patience, lest blood be drawn. Remember to move slowly. But what is more significant is that they don’t have leaves; they have what I would call “needles” and books call “branchlets” named “cladophylls,” They shed. As in, fall on the floor. Daily.

The second alternative is ivy, truly a stalwart plant. They make excellent winter houseplants. Mine rotate — every spring I buy a flat and use them at the ends of my window boxes. Any that I have left over, I plant in front of an ugly wall, which now is close to being covered. I have a new section of ugly wall, however, so the work goes on. When closing the window boxes in fall, I pot up the ivy, now full and very long, and bring them inside for the winter. Then in spring, they go back out. Next year they’ll go in front of the new ugly wall.

They don’t seem to mind the aridity caused by winter heating systems and they tolerate once-a-week watering with no difficulty. The only problem with them for backdrop purposes is that they don’t really “fountain up” as the sprengeri do, so it requires a little ingenuity to place them so they are actually the “back” in backdrop.

A major advantage however, is that you can intertwine little white holiday lights through them and they won’t mind at all.

Next week, we’ll take a look at good gifts for gardeners, given the holidays fast approaching. It’s that time of year again.