Our Native Ferns

Edward Joseph Lowe (1825-1900) had the financial means to be an astronomer, a meteorologist, and an expert on ferns, the latter for him being “a matter of everyday life.” He wrote several very popular books in the last half of the 19^th century, during the “fern craze” that engulfed England at the time. In “Our Native Ferns” (1867-69), he focuses on many of the highly coveted mutations, including Athyrium filix-femina var. multifidum, which he describes as “a most beautiful, symmetrical, and graceful Fern, although a monstrosity.” This book was a catalogue to these many forms, which were the most desirable objects for fern collectors.

Lowe used a third technique for producing his images. Although his title pages lack credits, it is widely known that his images were from the printing company of Benjamin Fawcett (1808-1893) that used a centuries-old technique of wood blocks, but with a difference. Fawcett’s blocks were engraved in aged Turkish boxwood using the especially hard end grain, allowing for very fine lines and detail. For each color, a separate block was used that were carefully aligned and pressed on the page.

Excerpted from the Spring 2020 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin

The British Ferns

William Jackson Hooker (1785-1865) was the first director of the Royal Botanic Garden at Kew in Britain, an institution that grew to prominence during his 24 years in that role. He was very interested in all plants and led some of the first plant explorations to isolated places in Europe, including Iceland. He was especially interested in non-flowering plants, with ferns as his favorite.

He wrote several books on ferns beginning in the 1830s, most with botanically detailed and precise descriptions spanning several volumes. In addition to his explorations, he had also had a large herbarium of preserved plant specimens from around the world, so his range was global in scope.

Recognizing the popular interest in ferns, he published for the more casual botanist and gardener “British Ferns” in 1861. He described his subjects as “general favourites with the lovers of Nature and of the horticulturist, in consequence of the extreme beauty and gracefulness of their forms.” Walter Hood Fitch (1817-1892), a protégé of Hooker’s, captured that beauty in hand-colored, lithograph images such as the Osmunda regalis or the “Osmund Royal fern.” Hooker translated “osmund” as meaning domestic peace in Saxon.

Excerpted from the Spring 2020 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin

The Fern World

One of my favorite fern authors is Francis George Heath (1843-1913). A prolific writer, he was keen on popularizing ferns with a well-honed eye and wit. He wrote at least one book about ferns for children and in all his books, he encourages fern tourism. His favorite destination was his home shire of Devon, located in the west of England with long, wild coasts on both the English and Bristol Channels.

In “The Fern World” (1877), he explains his reasoning behind this push for seeking ferns in situ. “It is too frequently the custom of our botanical writers to describe with painstaking minuteness only the structure and peculiarities of the organs of plants—but tell us nothing of the life of the plants.” He was fond of pointing out contrasts, whether it be to distinguish between the rugged scenery of Devon and the “pretty, and quiet, and pastoral” look of Somerset directly to the east, or between a “Lady Fern” (Athyrium filix-faemina) and the “Male Fern” (Dryopteris filix-mas) included in the same plate. Of the former he comments, “Poets may fairly claim the right to describe the Lady Fern; for this beautiful plant is unquestionably the fairest and most delicately graceful of ferny forms, whether large or small.” He describes the “Male Fern” as so designated “on account of its remarkably erect and robust habit of growth.”

Excerpted from the Spring 2020 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin

Ferns For American Gardens

As the curator of ferns at the New York Botanical Garden, John Mickel has considerable experience with the cold hardiness of his subjects. He recognizes that his book “Ferns for American Gardens” is “not the last word on hardy fern cultivation, but only a beginning.” Despite being from the East Coast, his many garden worthy selections are vetted for suitability throughout the country, and in his acknowledgements he credits many members of the Hardy Fern Foundation, based in the Seattle area, for their input. A recommended book by local fern expert Sue Olsen.

Published in Garden Notes: Northwest Horticultural Society, Spring 2020

Hardy Ferns

Reginald Kaye was a 20th century, English nursery owner and an expert at growing everything from orchids to alpine plants. He had both a hosta and a pulmonaria named after him, but he wrote about his favorite plants in “Hardy Ferns,” a book that helped revive something of the popularity ferns enjoyed during the Victorian period. His writing is both pragmatic and lightened by dry humor. A favorite book of local fern expert Sue Olsen.

Published in Garden Notes: Northwest Horticultural Society, Spring 2020

The Plantfinder’s Guide To Garden Ferns

Martin Rickard’s “The Plantfinder’s Guide to Garden Ferns” includes an extensive list and description of cultivars, an obvious passion of the author and very popular with patrons of the Miller Library, as the book has been checked out over 30 times. This has excellent illustrations, including two-page plates containing several varieties for comparison; the fine foliage clearly highlighted by the lighter background. A favorite book of local fern expert Sue Olsen.

Published in Garden Notes: Northwest Horticultural Society, Spring 2020

The Well-Gardened Mind: The Restorative Power Of Nature

Cleve West was one of the panelists for the October 2020 Northwest Horticultural Society Symposium, Gardening for the Future: Diversity and Ecology in the Urban Landscape. In his presentation, he mentioned several books that have influence his thinking. One of those is “The Well Gardened Mind: The Restorative Power of Nature” by Sue Stuart-Smith.

An active gardener, married to a garden designer (Tom Stuart-Smith), the author’s research shows that humans have grown flowers for ornamental purposes for at least 5,000 years, suggesting pleasure was an important factor in evolutionary development. “The cultivated flower’s niche in the ecosystem is therefore a human emotional niche.”

Although English, Stuart-Smith makes reference to the research of Gregory Bratman of the University of Washington, who found that urban dwellers had improved mental health function after a 90-minute walk in a park setting. The benefits were not shared by a control group that walked along a roadway.

Stuart-Smith includes a chapter on “War and Gardening”, highlighting how soldiers found refuge in small plantings in the most horrific of settings (the Miller Library has other books devoted to this topic). A garden is a statement in opposition to the carnage of battle and a means to maintain some level of sanity.

The author, a psychiatrist, devotes parts of this book to a brief biography of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), the founder of psychoanalysis, focusing on his appreciation of flowers, both in the wild and in garden settings. His favorites included gardenias and the poet’s daffodil (Narcissus poeticus), the latter he knew as a wild flower growing in meadows near a favorite holiday home in the Austrian Alps. Yes – Freud did have opinions on the meaning of flowers in dreams. I direct you to pages 144-147 of Stuart-Smith’s book to learn more.

Friends of Freud knew of his love of flowers and these were often gifts on his birthday. Stuart-Smith highlights studies that suggest flowers give longer and deeper satisfaction than any other type of gift. Writing this review, on a gloomy, rainy day, shortly before Valentine’s Day, I can especially anticipate this flower power. Although, chocolate works pretty well, too!

Published in Garden Notes: Northwest Horticultural Society, Spring 2021

Fern Fever: The Story of Pteridomania

While preparing for a recent class on ferns for the Northwest Horticultural Society, I discovered a delightful book that has been in our collection for several years. Fern Fever: The Story of Pteridomania (2012) by Sarah Whittingham, is an extremely detailed, well-researched and well-documented history of fern collecting and growing. It especially focuses on the widespread and fervent interest these plants generated in Britain during the last half of the 19th century. This book is also a lot of fun!

Prior to the 1830s, ferns were minor players in the herbals and floras of Britain. The invention of the Wardian case was one reason for the change. These structures, much like a large terrarium, kept an even moist atmosphere for humidity-loving plants and provided a barrier to the polluted air of sooty London and other major cities. They quickly became a fashionable accessory for every middle class household.

Another discovery was a plenitude of ferns in the native flora, and that many species were prone to sporting fascinating varieties, ripe for collecting and propagating. Resorts sprang up in areas with rich fern floras, and collecting prize examples was a popular vacation pastime. “Visitors to ferny districts not only picked and bought ferns, but also purchased fern albums and local knick-knacks and curios featuring the plant as a motif…to demonstrate one’s refined taste, in both choice of holiday destination and souvenirs and presents.”

The only downside to this book is its scarcity – the Miller Library copy is for library use only. However, Whittingham also wrote The Victorian Fern Craze (2009), a condensed but equally engaging version of her later work, which is available to borrow.

Excerpted from the February 2020 Leaflet, Volume 7, Issue 2.

Community-scale composting systems: a comprehensive practical guide for closing the food system loop and solving our waste crisis

Community-scale composting systems cover
Author James McSweeney passionately believes that food scraps are resources — not waste — and has spent a career consulting for farmers, businesses and community based non-profits on how to turn organic material into high quality compost. His experience and knowledge has been collected into a text book that details not only the various techniques for making compost at scale, but also all the economic, logistic and business considerations required for success. The book is very well organized with charts, worksheets for planning, diagrams and excellent color photos. McSweeney’s writing is scientific, but also engaging with just enough anecdotal examples and case studies to keep readers interested in what could be a very dry topic. Footnotes document extensive references, while sidebars give focused information such as “Common regulations for food scrap composters.”

In the introduction McSweeney distills the essence of successful composting to the four Cs: cover, contain, complete and carbon. The following chapters explore several business and system models (such as drop-off, school, commercial, community garden) with economic analysis for each system. The biology and chemistry behind the compost process is detailed in another chapter. Proven composting methods, such as windrows and aerated static pile, are explained the following chapters. Finally the text concludes with chapters on site management and marketing the final product.

This book would be useful for anyone on the composting continuum from serious home scale and multi-family, to neighborhood, school and work place, to on-farm, community gardens and demonstration sites to large scale municipal and industrial enterprises.

Excerpted from the February 2020 Leaflet for Scholars Volume 7, Issue 2.

Flora of the Mediterranean with California, Chile, Australia and South Africa

The lands that border the Mediterranean Sea have – for the most part – a similar climate: hot, dry summers and mild, wet winters. Climatologists have identified four other regions in the world with a similar pattern, including most of California and parts of Australia, Chile, and South Africa.

The floras of these regions encompass intense speciation, so that on approximately 2% of the world’s land mass one finds over 12% of the world’s plant species, many of them endemic. Exploring these floras is a new book, Flora of the Mediterranean by Christopher Gardner and Basak Guner Gardner.

This is a rich photo guide; one could just enjoy the many, stunning close-ups in this large format book (12×10″). However, that would mean missing the extensive detail in the text, such as a description of the Mediterranean climate in Australia that begins: “On occasion the botanist is subjected to such an intense bombardment of new species they have trouble assimilating everything in front of them.”

The chapter on California will feel closer to home, as the Pacific Northwest has a modified, or cool Mediterranean climate, colder and wetter in the winter, with less heat in the summer. This allows us to grow successfully many of the plants from these regions in our gardens.

All images in this book are in situ and a bonus is a short but pithy description of techniques for photographing plants in the wild. While it’s not a lending book, I encourage taking some time with this book, or the authors’ earlier Flora of the Silk Road (2014), in the Miller Library.

Published in the January 2020 Leaflet for Scholars, Volume 7, Issue 1