Woodland Gardening

Leaves, leaves, and MORE leaves - that is the joys of spring yard work when you live in a woods! I battle them, think I have won, but low and behold - they return, bringing many dried and crispy friends with them!
It is worth clearing them out, because now I can see my cute little concrete angels once again, without the brown leaves obstructing the view.
I began to move some of the overgrown plants around. The Cinnamon Ferns were starting to creep outside their boundaries.

Cinnamon Ferns are large, with fronds that can grow up to six feet long and a foot wide. Mine get about 3 feet tall. They grow best in large clumps in moist woods, marshes, wet ditches, and stream banks. A Cinnamon Fern has two types of fronds: the big green ones, and smaller ones which start out as bright green and then turn a cinnamon color. The cinnamon-colored ones have sori on them. Sori then makes many spores so the plant can reproduce.

In early Spring, new young fronds start to grow. They look like a skinny stem, which uncoils into a leafy frond. These young skinny fronds are called "fiddleheads", which are eaten by White-tailed Deer and other animals.

Once several large fronds have fully grown, then the smaller ones with sori will grow. Then fern will stop growing new fronds in a couple of months. It will instead grow spores to be spread to new places to grow new ferns. The sori are wonderful to use in dried floral arrangements - they add such interest when surrounded by greens and assorted dried or artificial flowers! (If anyone is interested, I have 2 sets of 15 sori for sale - $5.00 a set, plus the shipping. Email and I will get you a final price. I may even toss in a couple extras!)

Cinnamon Ferns also have rhizomes that spread and sends up new plants. This is how my ferns got out of their boundaries! Cinnamon Fern fiddleheads are edible when boiled, though not many people eat them. These ferns are sometimes planted in shady yards to add beauty.

Thanks for stopping by! Have a beautiful day!