The New and Revised Fern Grower's Manual

Barbara Joe Hoshizaki and Robbin Moran
Portland, Oregon: Timber Press, 2001, 604 pages. Color plates, black and white photos, and line drawings,

US$59.95, BPS45

There aren't many books devoted to growing ferns. When I first got interested, the only other choice I found was the 2nd edition of Gordon Foster's Ferns to Know and Grow which had a decidedly limited east coast US hardy fern bias. Barbara Hoshizaki's first Fern Growers Manual, published in 1975, was really the first available comprehensive book on growing ferns. So, as for many fervent amateur fern growers, it was my first fern growing bible.

In 1987, Timber Press published David Jones' even more comprehensive Encyclopaedia of Ferns and it was nice to have two good books to use for reference. However, with a new focus at the microscopic level on botany in general and pteridology (the study of ferns) in particular, the relationships, the genera, and naming in general was in upheaval. We needed a new book on ferns. Adding to the pressure for a new book is the increased availability of ferns from all over the world to the hobbyist grower, as well as changes in the art of growing ferns.

Barbara Hoshizaki thought when she wrote her first book that "it would interest the horticultural public for only a few years before ferns would fall out of vogue." However, the clamor for a new book finally convinced Barbara to undertake the daunting task of expanding and updating her original book. Part of the way through the task, she asked Dr. Robbin Moran to collaborate and bring to bear his broad set of fern-related skills and recent experience as an author of The Ferns and Allied Plants of New England. Their goal has been to provide "plant people who want to grow or identify different ferns or fern allies" with "the information they need in this one volume." Hoshizaki and Moran have succeeded in their goal of creating the new bible for fern growers.

Barbara's focus has always been ferns in cultivation. I have been with Barbara as she visited many of the fern growers' gardens in San Diego and have heard her talk about many such other visits. Everywhere she went, Barbara would ask "do you grow this fern?," "how do you grow it?," "what kind of mix do you use?," and so on. Each answer went into her notebooks to be pulled out later for compilation. As a result, Barbara Hoshizaki and Robbin Moran managed to provide us with detailed information, photos, and drawings for over 700 ferns in cultivation.

Chapter one is a brief general introduction to ferns and their place in the botanic world. The second chapter focuses on fern structure. Here, it would have been nice to combine the information in David Jones' book with this new chapter. The Encyclopaedia of Ferns covers most of these topics more thoroughly than does the Fern Grower's Manual.

Chapter three provides information about obtaining ferns. This is very important to serious fern collectors, as almost all local nurseries grow mostly the same 10-15 species of ferns. This chapter has important sections on sources for ferns, purchasing ferns, collecting ferns, traveling with and packaging ferns, and interstate transport of ferns. Additionally, in Appendix III, the book provides a detailed explanation of the often confusing aspects of importing ferns from foreign countries.

Chapters 4-8 contain excellent information on Cultural Needs, Soils and Fertilizers, Through the Year with Ferns, and Propagation. Both new and experienced ferns growers should review these chapters. There is area-specific, temperature-specific, and time-specific information that is valuable to all growers.

Chapter 9, Landscaping, is in some ways a stretch. There is very useful information about ferns to use for different planting situations, but the general discussion of landscaping would be better suited to a book on landscaping rather than a botanic specialty book of this type.

Chapter 10, Growing Special Ferns, is a storehouse of knowledge. In this chapter, the authors have provided information on planting situations such as indoors and in special containers. They have also taken a look at the special requirements associated with a few more common types of ferns, such as maidenhair, Boston ferns, and staghorns; in addition providing information about some more taxing groups of ferns such as xerophytes (dry climate ferns) and filmy ferns. There are also sections on fern allies and on growing ferns specifically for display in a show.

Chapter 11, Troubles with Growing Ferns, provides a superior look at fern troubleshooting. The section of this chapter on cultural problems uses a symptomatic key, so you can start with a symptom and see what the causes and solutions for those symptoms might be. In the section on pests, there is relatively up-to-date comprehensive coverage on pests and pest controls, including non-pesticide alternatives.

Chapter 12 focuses on How Ferns Get Their Names. Barbara points out that "It matters little how one pronounces scientific names as long as they are understood by the listener." Other books on growing ferns pay little attention to the topic of taxonomy. It is useful for both the serious and not so serious fern grower. For the serious grower, there is important information here that can help you understand the relationships between ferns based on naming. For the not so serious grower, knowing some of these rules will help you remember why most Polypodium scientific names end with "um" and most Pyrrosia scientific names end with "a."

Chapter 13, Ferns and Fern Allies in Cultivation, is the real heart of the book. Fern Grower's Manual presents over 700 hundred ferns. For each fern, the book provides the scientific name, a common name (if the fern has one), a classification of the fern's ability to grow within a specific temperature range (from very hardy to very tender), and a description of the fern's in cultivation requirements. For each fern, there is also one or more line diagrams showing a frond silhouette and, usually, a fertile pinnule. For some ferns there is also a black and white photograph. These are very useful for identifying what fern you have.

This book corrects one of the major flaws, in my opinion, of the Encyclopaedia of Ferns by presenting the ferns in alphabetic order based on genus name. David Jones grouped his ferns alphabetically within larger subcategories ("The Brakes"), which meant, for me, a trip to the index for almost every fern lookup.

The authors have carefully considered the recent fern literature in their naming of ferns within genera. In some places they have clumped (e.g., Lycopodium and not Huperzia or Lycopodiella) and in some places they have split (e.g., Cyathea, but also Alsophila, Cnemidaria, and Sphaeropteris). In almost all cases they have explained the naming scheme and have presented the alternative name as a synonym. It will throw some of us off to have to remember that Cyathea princeps is listed instead under Sphaeropteris horrida. However, another nice thing about this book is the plant index with both scientific and common names. Thus, if you remember that the fern is the Blonde Tree Fern or the Monkey-Tail Fern, you'll be able to look it up.

The middle of this chapter has a nice collection of color plates showing us the beauty and variation of ferns.

The rest of the book is devoted to appendices, a glossary, a list of literature cited, and a subject index and a plant index. The first appendix, Measuring Light, seems a little scattered and out of place. The information is sort of useful for photography, but is given no context. Appendix II provides a very brief introduction to fern societies, focusing mostly on the American Fern Society and information available from the Internet.

Appendix III provides a discussion of importing ferns into the United States. Different countries have differing rules, but this provides a good introduction the intricacies of importing ferns. Appendix IV provides a good comprehensive listing of pesticides, fungicides, bactericides, and disinfectants. The listing includes a scientific name, one or more trade names, and appropriate applications.

Appendix V treats the result of the most recent morphological and microscopic research on the relationships of ferns in a chapter titled Family Classification of Fern Genera Treated in the Text. This appendix lists the most recently accepted family name and the different fern genera collected within that family. Some families have no genera listed under them (e.g., Grammitidaceae) because no fern genera within this family are commonly cultivated. This appendix also contains a couple of evolutionary trees representing the latest scientific thought about the evolutionary relationships between ferns and other vascular plants and within the fern families.