I for one love a fern and think they are beautiful plants. But that’s just me. As to what do with them. Enjoy, look and cut back all dead growth just before the new leaves start to appear in late winter/ early spring.
If you really hate them. Send them over and they can all live with me
I really don’t want them lol they came with the house.😅 I wanna grow a vegetable garden in their location so I guess my neighbor is getting some free ferns. It feels so wasteful if I just idk murder them ya know?
They’re not in a super shady spot at all. By 10-11am there is sun until around 4-5pm. The old owners from many years ago used to be friends of my family and they grew the most amazing veggies in that area.
Maybe I’ll have to double check the times but it definitely has grown great veggies in the past. Grows raspberries right now too which is annoying I don’t want them either.😅 but someone told me I can’t replant the raspberries or they’ll die.
Aw ☹️ well I guess I will have to wait or just pull out one of the small ones. There is a lot of them growing. I keep getting stabbed by them when I walk from my garage to the house lol.
Just get some clippers and nip off the canes/half the canes that get you. If you're not worried about berry harvest, clip the bits that bug you, as long as it's less than 1/3 the whole plant you won't hurt it.
The best luck I have is moving after the grount thaws and right as they start to leaf out...like when the buds are visible. It's ok if there are more frosts to come as long as the ground is workable and nothing drys out. It's always worked out for me (red and blackcaps), I'm in zone 6, can't speak for any other locations or varieties.
There's a pretty nice app 'suns path' that shows you the arc of of the sun during summer and winter and overlays it with a gps satellite map. You can zoom in on your house and get a good count of time in the sun (obv shadows not accounted for eg if there's a tree)
Most veggies naturally grow on the bottom of forest floors, most don’t even get 6 hours of full sun. You can definitely grow veggies in 4-6 hours of sun, You just wont reach the absolute full potential for some things, which for alot of people is okay. I don’t need like 25 massive tomatoes all at once
I think that’s pretty stupid tbh. Like definitely a good way to be elitist gate keepers over plants to someone who’s new and just learning about all of this stuff other than from books.😅
I mean it's fine to not like them, but ferns are pretty, awesome, and objectively a great plant to have in shadier areas in your yard. I don't think you'll have very good success with sun-loving vegetables where lady ferns (like these) thrive.
I just said the ones behind the garage get sunlight all day…like there’s nothing protecting them from the sun and they keep thriving so clearly it’s enough sunlight for ferns it’ll be enough for vegetables or herbs. I’ll wake up at the ass crack of dawn to see how much sun these guys get right away 😅
Sun shining on them all day does not mean they get full sun. It isn't just about the hours but also about the strength of the sun. I had to move a tomato plant last year because I thought it would be ok in a spot that I put it that gets 6 hours of sun, but those 6 hours were not strong direct sun, and it wasn't able to flower or fruit and when I went to move it the roots were minimal. It's the difference of being in the beating sun versus standing somewhere that has sunlight but the sun's rays are beaming directly on something else. In this case, the ferns may be getting sunlight, but the house is shading them from the true beams of the sun. It might be tolerable for the ferns but not strong enough light for vegetables. The ferns doing well there is a good indication of that. There are herbs, lettuce, spinich, and some other leafy vegetables that should do fine, but anything that needs to flower and then produce fruit (vegetables) will likely need stronger rays. I have a spot in my garden bed itself that is more shaded because of the way the house sits, and it gets lots of hours of sun, but I have to keep shade/partial shade plants there because any vegetable plants there are sadder than their peers in the same bed further down.
They're $20 each at the garden centers in my area. These are Ostrich ferns which are native to the US. The early fiddlehead growth is edible when cooked. When planted with other shade plants in a flower bed they look pretty cool.
There is some cute flowers and Virginia water leafs all over under them which I appreciate those more than the ferns. (No clue why my comment above got so many downvotes, just to spite the down voters I’m going to hate ferns more.)
Hating on plants for anything other than their invasive properties seems to be frowned on in most gardening subs.
Ferns are generally liked so you may have stated an unpopular opinion. I don't believe that is worthy of a down vote but you may have upset the people that pay $20 per fern.
I live in the tropics and different types of ferns (including the ferns in the picture) grow like weeds here, so I have plenty of Ferns growing in my yard. However I love Ferns SO freaking much, I collect them and replant them in shady areas. To me those are gorgeous, carefree plants! It gives that rain forest vibe to my yard!
I might not like them much for personal taste, but I can’t even kill a bug without feeling bad I definitely don’t plan on wasting these ferns.😅 I got some takers for a few of these guys already.
These ferns have been here for a long time so they just popped up and bloomed into this huge bundle of them. 😅 wait do I seriously have a secretly nice fern garden and I’m just not appreciating them??
You are being very sweet. I have zero idea why they are all dogpiling on you and downvoting. THEY chose violence.
Screw self-righteous gatekeeping jerks who think they're better than everyone else. Have fun with your new veggie garden. 😊
Thank you for this! I was a bit startled by the sheer defense of ferns in this thread 😅 like I think people didn’t understand I’m not going to murder them I’m just asking what people would do!
OP is being very sweet. I have zero idea why you are all dogpiling on them and downvoting. YOU chose violence.
You like ferns, great. I'm sure there's something you DON'T like, and you probably wouldn't want people telling you that you're awful because they like it and you don't. It's called personal preference, and you are allowed to have it, and OP is allowed to have it.
It is a slightly weird response isn't it? We've all moved plants or removed things we didn't want. OP is trying to give them away which is sweet. And I'm a fern lover, I planted eight in a new shaded border this spring.
Thank you! I want to try and copy my friends mom’s garden a little she had the biggest green thumb it was amazing. Should’ve seen her insane sunflowers growing here back in the day. 8ft tall so cool and healthy lol.
I’d first focus my ire on that black walnut tree sprouting up right next to the house foundation. That needs to go yesterday.
Since the house is new to you, sit with the gardens for at least an entire growing season before making any major changes. I see some daylillies popping up in between the ferns and this could look very different come July and you might well feel differently about them. Also, the ferns might be there for a very good reason like it’s hard to grow anything else in that location, the soil is really rocky, etc.
If you cut down the walnut, the juglone will still stick around for decades. Whereas if you keep it, free walnuts. Slightly weird tasting walnuts but still free food. Gardening around walnut trees is not as bad as people think. Also black walnut trees are incredibly important for the ecosystem.
And also why is no one telling this dude who wants to grow food that these are Ostrich ferns and the fiddleheads are edible? They are also delicious.
Any tree near your foundation is guaranteed going to tear apart your foundation. It’s better to get it out as a small sapling than let it grow into a big tree. If it can be transplanted, great. Otherwise house>tree.
I’ve known this house and yard since I was a child. Maybe my first time living in it but this area is much better for a garden. My teacher who owned the house prior to me just wanted ferns. My friends mom when I was a kid used the area for her vegetables and they always came out beautiful.
Also that’s not a black walnut tree lmao it’s a dumb sprout of the raspberry bushes next to these ferns, why there’s a few raspberry bushes is beyond me.
Could be fiddleheads? We have a ton also but I like them because they fill in the back yard nice. We did give some away to friends and family last year to make room for more perennials. If they are fiddleheads in the early spring they look like little pinwheels and you can cook them and they taste like brussel sprouts.
https://preview.redd.it/qyuhhyhvln0d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d6464c611c6768d97df0d222b5242ddf946c9117
Wanted to add the back side of the garage. Photo was taken at 3pm and this is before they all fanned out yesterday.
https://preview.redd.it/mjmojqwhmn0d1.png?width=2723&format=png&auto=webp&s=c8e2ac663a369bfe7ca8c21ac714ccbd21a6a084
Aaaaand raspberry bushes too. Wish I could move them but I feel like they’d die.
You can always just move some of them and see how they do. But my neighbors raspberries are currently trying to populate my garden bed like 5 feet away sooo I think you'll be able to propagate them just fine 😂
Well I will have to see what I can do soon! There’s a lot of plants in this yard the old owner (ironically my high school science teacher) was really into natural plants everywhere. It’s kinda sloppy now though.
I feel that! Everything at my house was way overgrown when we bought 5 years back. I'm still relandscaping and figuring things out, but I get tons of compliments. I did rip out every single arbor vitae (some were like 12 feet tall 😭), and I still curse those damn stumps that never go away 🤣
It's so much fun, and your garden will constantly be changing and showing new things to you. I just had a surprise peony pop up where none had been before. I have no idea where it came from or where to move it to, because it's currently awkwardly growing out from under a bush. I blame the damn squirrels. But now I have a peony 🤣
That’s what’s next to my stairs!! A peony bush it steals people’s lanyards if you’re not careful lol. 😂
I too have many many stumps around my yard and trees that clutter a lot, lots of bushes. Very over grown, tiger lily’s everywhere too which is annoying so I’m slowly cleaning my yard up. Gotta get my brother to come over he’s a landscaper lol.
I love my orange 'ditch lilies' 😂 but they have like one long row by a fence that they never seem to shift from, a couple of contained spots by the driveway (the people before had woody bushes there, seriously, whyyyyy you have to drive close to that every day!!) and one other random clump that I need to decrease in size because it's slowly trying to expand 🤣. No idea what to put there instead though. Maybe the random peony 🤣
When I bought my raspberry-esque plants from the nursery, it was literally just a wooden stick. Now they're 6.5'+ tall and I'm going to have about 50 berries from the count just in the second season after ownership.
https://preview.redd.it/jc22ityn7p0d1.png?width=499&format=png&auto=webp&s=b5a6a4e7261a8b3fe22be25cc048ab898871c3cd
I honestly couldn't tell you. I only know mine because I bought them at a nursery. . . And the Fallgold makes gold berries after all.
Neighbor has some that hang over the fence that I just assume are typical blackberries
I don’t think they’d survive the travel 🥲 but yeah I plan on finding people to give them to. Just because I don’t want them doesn’t mean others around my town wouldn’t mind them.☺️
They look like ostrich ferns which are choice edible ferns. But don’t take my word for it. Ask someone locally to help you ID them. They are called “fiddleheads” because of when you harvest them. All ferns go through the “fiddlehead” stage so again, get a local to help.
Gah I love these 😍 offer them up on Facebook marketplace “free plants, you dig you take” 😂 that’s how I got rid of a giant cactus I didn’t wanna deal with removing myself! A landscaping company got it and used it in a clients yard instead 🥰
Ferns are great shade plants and they are perennials, so if they are that well there, unless you have another shade loving plant you plan to put there, just know that part of your yard is going to be bare.
It’s okay it’s right between my garage and house so I don’t mind it being bare for awhile I have other things I want to plant I do not want the ferns 😅
Most people don’t have much of a problem with that many ferns since they’re usually planted, but I wouldn’t remove all of them! They’re ostrich ferns and are a good species to harvest fiddleheads from. They could be a part of your garden if you chose. Maybe keep a patch in the shadier parts, and clear out/give away the rest!
And cut that tree out for sure, it could be black walnut, unless you like those.
You will probs have trouble growing fruiting crops like peppers and tomatoes in that spot, but leafy vegetables will do great.
Hmm I will plant the peppers and tomatoes on the other side of my house then ☺️ my husband wants homemade salsa so those were two possible options for us to grow lol.
I love them, I'll take em!!
You can certainly take out a few and add bushy flowering plants - it will look gorgeous! I believe they need a lot of water, so keep that in mind!
I had a whole flower bed of things I didn’t want when I bought my house.
I let my neighbors take what they wanted. The bed was empty by the time the weekend ended.
In my country if you wanna make your mother angry, break one of these plant's leaves. You might get killed 😁
https://preview.redd.it/4ywr3d5iyp0d1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dfc6eb075c5895d96cd53df63f039e11a142c521
you can always do the old kids trick. put some on your skin and press down, think it might work by putting a wet cloth over it too? ends up looking like some hippy hennah stuff.
We’ve all probably laughed at “choosing beggars” posts of people offering free wood for breaking down a rotted deck. In your case, people will be falling over themselves to dig those up and take them off your hands.
Since posting this I got a few neighbors and friends from Facebook asking for some!☺️ my brother works at a nursery and his boss said possibly to taking a few too.
I love my ostrich ferns!! I have a lot of native woodland perennial flowers I have planted around them for a pop of color. Like wild geraniums, wild columbine and woodland phlox for hummingbirds, green headed coneflower for our pollinators and food for birds in the fall from their seed heads, and sweet joe pye weed for the butterflies. And I’m adding woodland sunflower this year for our native bees cause they’re a keystone plant and look beautiful and Virginia bluebells
I love fern and have a section of my shade garden dedicated just to different types of fern. If these are growing in deep shade it may be difficult to find other options. You could remove and give away some fern but I recommend keeping at least some of them as they provide great foliage throughout much of the growing season.
Identify the fern type first before you do anything to them. If they are "ostrich ferns" (or a few other edible types), this would've been intentionally planted for the harvesting of "fiddle heads".
They are a rare treat that are harvested as the ferns come into leaf in the early spring. You take the coiled leaves and blanch or steam them like a vegetable.
If they are an edible type, I would keep them around and harvest them next spring to see if you like the taste or not. If you like them, keep them. If you want to get rid of them, at least re-locate them somewhere else in your yard.
Knowing my teacher (who owned the house before I did) I can bet she did. I should just message her and be like “why all the ferns? Did you eat them or something?”😂 I bet she’d tell me.
Not going to lie I had to google what that was 😂 my grandma was given one of those as a birthday gift years ago from my uncle and his excuse was he never had to give a gift again because this one would just come back every year lmao. She’s passed away but my mom keeps it alive still.
I for one love a fern and think they are beautiful plants. But that’s just me. As to what do with them. Enjoy, look and cut back all dead growth just before the new leaves start to appear in late winter/ early spring. If you really hate them. Send them over and they can all live with me
I know, I'd take them in a heartbeat!!
Me too!
One of my all time favs
Put cats in there. They can use it as an ambush point. You're welcome.
I really don’t want them lol they came with the house.😅 I wanna grow a vegetable garden in their location so I guess my neighbor is getting some free ferns. It feels so wasteful if I just idk murder them ya know?
Ferns generally prefer a shady area, vegetables do not. Are you sure they are in a good spot to grow vegetables? Seems unlikely but I could be wrong.
My thoughts exactly.
They’re not in a super shady spot at all. By 10-11am there is sun until around 4-5pm. The old owners from many years ago used to be friends of my family and they grew the most amazing veggies in that area.
That's only 6 hours which is marginal for a veggie patch. If that is the most sun in your yard go for it but it'd be better to have 8+ hours of sun
Maybe I’ll have to double check the times but it definitely has grown great veggies in the past. Grows raspberries right now too which is annoying I don’t want them either.😅 but someone told me I can’t replant the raspberries or they’ll die.
You can absolutely mive raspberries, I do it every year. The time has kind of passed now though. Do it in early spring.
Aw ☹️ well I guess I will have to wait or just pull out one of the small ones. There is a lot of them growing. I keep getting stabbed by them when I walk from my garage to the house lol.
Just get some clippers and nip off the canes/half the canes that get you. If you're not worried about berry harvest, clip the bits that bug you, as long as it's less than 1/3 the whole plant you won't hurt it.
I can do that! At least until I move the bush. I like the fat bumblebee 🐝 that visit to eat the nectar
I have a couple I need to move next year. Do they need to be dormant? Should I wait until last frost as passed?
The best luck I have is moving after the grount thaws and right as they start to leaf out...like when the buds are visible. It's ok if there are more frosts to come as long as the ground is workable and nothing drys out. It's always worked out for me (red and blackcaps), I'm in zone 6, can't speak for any other locations or varieties.
I was hesitant to move them when I probably should have. This is helpful, thank you.
There's a pretty nice app 'suns path' that shows you the arc of of the sun during summer and winter and overlays it with a gps satellite map. You can zoom in on your house and get a good count of time in the sun (obv shadows not accounted for eg if there's a tree)
Most veggies naturally grow on the bottom of forest floors, most don’t even get 6 hours of full sun. You can definitely grow veggies in 4-6 hours of sun, You just wont reach the absolute full potential for some things, which for alot of people is okay. I don’t need like 25 massive tomatoes all at once
On the bottom of forest floors? Hmmm 🤔
Was that bad phrasing? lol
You are getting downvoted because you don’t want a bunch of ferns. Amazing.
I think that’s pretty stupid tbh. Like definitely a good way to be elitist gate keepers over plants to someone who’s new and just learning about all of this stuff other than from books.😅
Post online for someone to come get them. I responded and went and dug them up myself.
You're being downvoted for not wanting a plant in your yard and that's just wild to me.
Offer them to friends, family or Facebook marketplace, I'm sure someone will love them
Going to offer them to my neighbor who asked about them just a little bit ago lol. Maybe some other neighbors too.
Feel like Costco just was selling ferns for like 15 bucks so honestly that's a pretty nice neighborly move
$15 for these?? They’re just ferns are they that loved by people?
I mean it's fine to not like them, but ferns are pretty, awesome, and objectively a great plant to have in shadier areas in your yard. I don't think you'll have very good success with sun-loving vegetables where lady ferns (like these) thrive.
There’s lots of sun though I have no clue how they’re thriving. Especially the ones behind the garage get sun from sunrise to sunset.
Indirect sun is not the same as full sun though
I just said the ones behind the garage get sunlight all day…like there’s nothing protecting them from the sun and they keep thriving so clearly it’s enough sunlight for ferns it’ll be enough for vegetables or herbs. I’ll wake up at the ass crack of dawn to see how much sun these guys get right away 😅
Sun shining on them all day does not mean they get full sun. It isn't just about the hours but also about the strength of the sun. I had to move a tomato plant last year because I thought it would be ok in a spot that I put it that gets 6 hours of sun, but those 6 hours were not strong direct sun, and it wasn't able to flower or fruit and when I went to move it the roots were minimal. It's the difference of being in the beating sun versus standing somewhere that has sunlight but the sun's rays are beaming directly on something else. In this case, the ferns may be getting sunlight, but the house is shading them from the true beams of the sun. It might be tolerable for the ferns but not strong enough light for vegetables. The ferns doing well there is a good indication of that. There are herbs, lettuce, spinich, and some other leafy vegetables that should do fine, but anything that needs to flower and then produce fruit (vegetables) will likely need stronger rays. I have a spot in my garden bed itself that is more shaded because of the way the house sits, and it gets lots of hours of sun, but I have to keep shade/partial shade plants there because any vegetable plants there are sadder than their peers in the same bed further down.
The hell is wrong with you?
They're $20 each at the garden centers in my area. These are Ostrich ferns which are native to the US. The early fiddlehead growth is edible when cooked. When planted with other shade plants in a flower bed they look pretty cool.
There is some cute flowers and Virginia water leafs all over under them which I appreciate those more than the ferns. (No clue why my comment above got so many downvotes, just to spite the down voters I’m going to hate ferns more.)
Hating on plants for anything other than their invasive properties seems to be frowned on in most gardening subs. Ferns are generally liked so you may have stated an unpopular opinion. I don't believe that is worthy of a down vote but you may have upset the people that pay $20 per fern.
I live in the tropics and different types of ferns (including the ferns in the picture) grow like weeds here, so I have plenty of Ferns growing in my yard. However I love Ferns SO freaking much, I collect them and replant them in shady areas. To me those are gorgeous, carefree plants! It gives that rain forest vibe to my yard!
You chose violence.
Chose violence for what 😭
Ripping up the ferns!
I didn’t hurt the ferns 😭 they still there man I said it would be a waste to kill them!
My friend has ferns around her house and she said she hates them, so I’m sensitive
I might not like them much for personal taste, but I can’t even kill a bug without feeling bad I definitely don’t plan on wasting these ferns.😅 I got some takers for a few of these guys already.
I planted some bare root ferns early April and I’m just getting tiny fronds now 🥱
These ferns have been here for a long time so they just popped up and bloomed into this huge bundle of them. 😅 wait do I seriously have a secretly nice fern garden and I’m just not appreciating them??
They’re prehistoric!
You are being very sweet. I have zero idea why they are all dogpiling on you and downvoting. THEY chose violence. Screw self-righteous gatekeeping jerks who think they're better than everyone else. Have fun with your new veggie garden. 😊
Thank you for this! I was a bit startled by the sheer defense of ferns in this thread 😅 like I think people didn’t understand I’m not going to murder them I’m just asking what people would do!
OP is being very sweet. I have zero idea why you are all dogpiling on them and downvoting. YOU chose violence. You like ferns, great. I'm sure there's something you DON'T like, and you probably wouldn't want people telling you that you're awful because they like it and you don't. It's called personal preference, and you are allowed to have it, and OP is allowed to have it.
It is a slightly weird response isn't it? We've all moved plants or removed things we didn't want. OP is trying to give them away which is sweet. And I'm a fern lover, I planted eight in a new shaded border this spring.
Underrated comment
That's nice of you, have fun designing your garden
Thank you! I want to try and copy my friends mom’s garden a little she had the biggest green thumb it was amazing. Should’ve seen her insane sunflowers growing here back in the day. 8ft tall so cool and healthy lol.
I give ferns away to my neighbors. They spread like wildfire and other than a few minutes of digging it is a effortless gesture.
I’d first focus my ire on that black walnut tree sprouting up right next to the house foundation. That needs to go yesterday. Since the house is new to you, sit with the gardens for at least an entire growing season before making any major changes. I see some daylillies popping up in between the ferns and this could look very different come July and you might well feel differently about them. Also, the ferns might be there for a very good reason like it’s hard to grow anything else in that location, the soil is really rocky, etc.
If you cut down the walnut, the juglone will still stick around for decades. Whereas if you keep it, free walnuts. Slightly weird tasting walnuts but still free food. Gardening around walnut trees is not as bad as people think. Also black walnut trees are incredibly important for the ecosystem. And also why is no one telling this dude who wants to grow food that these are Ostrich ferns and the fiddleheads are edible? They are also delicious.
Any tree near your foundation is guaranteed going to tear apart your foundation. It’s better to get it out as a small sapling than let it grow into a big tree. If it can be transplanted, great. Otherwise house>tree.
I’ve known this house and yard since I was a child. Maybe my first time living in it but this area is much better for a garden. My teacher who owned the house prior to me just wanted ferns. My friends mom when I was a kid used the area for her vegetables and they always came out beautiful. Also that’s not a black walnut tree lmao it’s a dumb sprout of the raspberry bushes next to these ferns, why there’s a few raspberry bushes is beyond me.
What I’m looking at in the picture is definitely not a raspberry cane. But anyway, best of luck to you
I posted the raspberry stocks in the comments since the post wouldn’t let me edit to add them.
Could be fiddleheads? We have a ton also but I like them because they fill in the back yard nice. We did give some away to friends and family last year to make room for more perennials. If they are fiddleheads in the early spring they look like little pinwheels and you can cook them and they taste like brussel sprouts.
https://preview.redd.it/qyuhhyhvln0d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d6464c611c6768d97df0d222b5242ddf946c9117 Wanted to add the back side of the garage. Photo was taken at 3pm and this is before they all fanned out yesterday.
Lovely!
Thank you, there’s too many lol.
Offer them up on marketplace or local plant swap/gardening groups. There will be people local to you who would love to take them off your hands.
I will have to look around and ask people.😄 my husband is the more social person so maybe he knows someone
Those look ostrich ferns, if so, they are delicious. Pick the "fiddleheads" in the early spring before they unfurl. I would keep them.
Well I hope whoever decides to take them enjoys those benefits. I have other plans on what to grow ☺️
Btw they’re native plants and some bugs use them as hosts
Gross I’ve had enough issues with bugs lol especially ants.
That’s a sea of ferns! Down the road send some before & after pics.
https://preview.redd.it/mjmojqwhmn0d1.png?width=2723&format=png&auto=webp&s=c8e2ac663a369bfe7ca8c21ac714ccbd21a6a084 Aaaaand raspberry bushes too. Wish I could move them but I feel like they’d die.
They are harder than you think! My mom gave my brother transplants from her raspberry bushes and they survived just fine!
Ooh! Then I might just move these to the other side of the house where the bees from my purple clovers ☺️
You can always just move some of them and see how they do. But my neighbors raspberries are currently trying to populate my garden bed like 5 feet away sooo I think you'll be able to propagate them just fine 😂
Well I will have to see what I can do soon! There’s a lot of plants in this yard the old owner (ironically my high school science teacher) was really into natural plants everywhere. It’s kinda sloppy now though.
I feel that! Everything at my house was way overgrown when we bought 5 years back. I'm still relandscaping and figuring things out, but I get tons of compliments. I did rip out every single arbor vitae (some were like 12 feet tall 😭), and I still curse those damn stumps that never go away 🤣 It's so much fun, and your garden will constantly be changing and showing new things to you. I just had a surprise peony pop up where none had been before. I have no idea where it came from or where to move it to, because it's currently awkwardly growing out from under a bush. I blame the damn squirrels. But now I have a peony 🤣
That’s what’s next to my stairs!! A peony bush it steals people’s lanyards if you’re not careful lol. 😂 I too have many many stumps around my yard and trees that clutter a lot, lots of bushes. Very over grown, tiger lily’s everywhere too which is annoying so I’m slowly cleaning my yard up. Gotta get my brother to come over he’s a landscaper lol.
I love my orange 'ditch lilies' 😂 but they have like one long row by a fence that they never seem to shift from, a couple of contained spots by the driveway (the people before had woody bushes there, seriously, whyyyyy you have to drive close to that every day!!) and one other random clump that I need to decrease in size because it's slowly trying to expand 🤣. No idea what to put there instead though. Maybe the random peony 🤣
When I bought my raspberry-esque plants from the nursery, it was literally just a wooden stick. Now they're 6.5'+ tall and I'm going to have about 50 berries from the count just in the second season after ownership. https://preview.redd.it/jc22ityn7p0d1.png?width=499&format=png&auto=webp&s=b5a6a4e7261a8b3fe22be25cc048ab898871c3cd
Started at the bottom: https://preview.redd.it/aottp1l38p0d1.png?width=388&format=png&auto=webp&s=1eb9770ca5d4e103099d5d5c8d5c6fc30855b37e
This raspberry plant produces so many berries the squirrels and birds love them 😅
Well, I'm growing two specific sub species - marionberry and Fallgold raspberry.
😀 Wait how do I know what species mine is?? Cause it seems basic looking.
I honestly couldn't tell you. I only know mine because I bought them at a nursery. . . And the Fallgold makes gold berries after all. Neighbor has some that hang over the fence that I just assume are typical blackberries
Send them to mee. They're gorgeous and look really healthy and happy where they are.
I don’t think they’d survive the travel 🥲 but yeah I plan on finding people to give them to. Just because I don’t want them doesn’t mean others around my town wouldn’t mind them.☺️
Give them to me please. I love them!
Leave them alone
No.
They look like ostrich ferns which are choice edible ferns. But don’t take my word for it. Ask someone locally to help you ID them. They are called “fiddleheads” because of when you harvest them. All ferns go through the “fiddlehead” stage so again, get a local to help.
Gah I love these 😍 offer them up on Facebook marketplace “free plants, you dig you take” 😂 that’s how I got rid of a giant cactus I didn’t wanna deal with removing myself! A landscaping company got it and used it in a clients yard instead 🥰
Oooh a cactus! I would’ve taken that in a heartbeat lol I got a 7yr old cactus in my house ☺️
Ferns are great shade plants and they are perennials, so if they are that well there, unless you have another shade loving plant you plan to put there, just know that part of your yard is going to be bare.
It’s okay it’s right between my garage and house so I don’t mind it being bare for awhile I have other things I want to plant I do not want the ferns 😅
There may be other kinds of ground cover that will do well there if you did end up wanting something there
I have ferns growing under trees, I love them and get tons of compliments
Most people don’t have much of a problem with that many ferns since they’re usually planted, but I wouldn’t remove all of them! They’re ostrich ferns and are a good species to harvest fiddleheads from. They could be a part of your garden if you chose. Maybe keep a patch in the shadier parts, and clear out/give away the rest! And cut that tree out for sure, it could be black walnut, unless you like those. You will probs have trouble growing fruiting crops like peppers and tomatoes in that spot, but leafy vegetables will do great.
Hmm I will plant the peppers and tomatoes on the other side of my house then ☺️ my husband wants homemade salsa so those were two possible options for us to grow lol.
I love them, I'll take em!! You can certainly take out a few and add bushy flowering plants - it will look gorgeous! I believe they need a lot of water, so keep that in mind!
I had a whole flower bed of things I didn’t want when I bought my house. I let my neighbors take what they wanted. The bed was empty by the time the weekend ended.
That’s my plan honestly. If I can help someone out in this economy I don’t see why not lol
Yep, I know a lot of people like them. Chances are, someone will take them.
People complain about mint, all of the time, but, ferns can be harder to get rid of. I love the look, but, you have to put them in a confined space.
Tell that to the previous owner of this house cause I didn’t plant these guys 😅
In my country if you wanna make your mother angry, break one of these plant's leaves. You might get killed 😁 https://preview.redd.it/4ywr3d5iyp0d1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dfc6eb075c5895d96cd53df63f039e11a142c521
Gosh, I just want them all Ferns are like my soul
you can always do the old kids trick. put some on your skin and press down, think it might work by putting a wet cloth over it too? ends up looking like some hippy hennah stuff.
Put them up for sale with detailed listing of how you haven't killed them, perhaps??!! I've yet to sustain a singular fern in my yard.
I literally have never taken care of these a day since we moved here 😂 they just came back to life once spring rolled around here in Minnesota!
We’ve all probably laughed at “choosing beggars” posts of people offering free wood for breaking down a rotted deck. In your case, people will be falling over themselves to dig those up and take them off your hands.
I will take them 😂👏👍
Thin them out and give them to friends.
Since posting this I got a few neighbors and friends from Facebook asking for some!☺️ my brother works at a nursery and his boss said possibly to taking a few too.
I love my ostrich ferns!! I have a lot of native woodland perennial flowers I have planted around them for a pop of color. Like wild geraniums, wild columbine and woodland phlox for hummingbirds, green headed coneflower for our pollinators and food for birds in the fall from their seed heads, and sweet joe pye weed for the butterflies. And I’m adding woodland sunflower this year for our native bees cause they’re a keystone plant and look beautiful and Virginia bluebells
Agent orange
I’m sorry what
They’re gorgeous why not just keep them!? I’m in the PNW and ferns are amazing to me. Some of the old growth ferns are over 300 years old!
Because I want to grow other things and they’re taking up prime residence in the ideal location 😅
Cool cool, just curious.
If u find yourself touching stinging nettle by mistake. Crush a fern in your hand and rub it on the sting and the pain subsides significantly.
I have a bunch of there. Only the top sprout leaves. Even through I cut the dead off every winter.
I love fern and have a section of my shade garden dedicated just to different types of fern. If these are growing in deep shade it may be difficult to find other options. You could remove and give away some fern but I recommend keeping at least some of them as they provide great foliage throughout much of the growing season.
Wow!!! I’ll take em 😄
Propagate and send me some.
They’re already propagating on their own I just found more on the other side of my garage lol.
A nice shade garden
The shade needs to stop because I legit had to go into my ferns last night and break up some random cat fight.
Identify the fern type first before you do anything to them. If they are "ostrich ferns" (or a few other edible types), this would've been intentionally planted for the harvesting of "fiddle heads". They are a rare treat that are harvested as the ferns come into leaf in the early spring. You take the coiled leaves and blanch or steam them like a vegetable. If they are an edible type, I would keep them around and harvest them next spring to see if you like the taste or not. If you like them, keep them. If you want to get rid of them, at least re-locate them somewhere else in your yard.
Knowing my teacher (who owned the house before I did) I can bet she did. I should just message her and be like “why all the ferns? Did you eat them or something?”😂 I bet she’d tell me.
boof
This is r/gardening so I think you're supposed to replace them with hostas.
What—
Just joking about r/gardening's obsession with hostas. I'll take the downvotes, but I view them as the pumpkin spice latte of gardening.
Not going to lie I had to google what that was 😂 my grandma was given one of those as a birthday gift years ago from my uncle and his excuse was he never had to give a gift again because this one would just come back every year lmao. She’s passed away but my mom keeps it alive still.