“It is a good time to be a gardener and a good time to grow ferns,” says Richie Steffen in the introduction to The Plant Lover’s Guide to Ferns. I’m sure his co-author Sue Olsen would totally agree. Both have served as president of The Hardy Fern Foundation—Olsen was a founding member—and are confirmed pteridomaniacs, people crazy about ferns. I’m a bit fern-crazed myself. I can get as excited about a new fern book as a new fern. I could think of no better pair to pen this volume in the Timber Press series of Plant Lover’s Guides.
Olsen’s expertise on the subject goes without saying. Her 2007 Encyclopedia of Garden Ferns (Timber Press) is in my mind the Bible for fern lovers. She has done an excellent job of whittling down the 960 that appeared in that book to a mere 140 of the best for this volume. No small task I’m sure—and a gift to us gardeners who can get lost in the miasma of ferns available to us. Her descriptions and cultural information are the backbone of this monograph and make it well worth the purchase.
On receiving it I immediately paged through this richly illustrated guide—Olsen and Steffen supplied all the beautiful images—to see if any of my favorites made t...
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