A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion Landscape trials and triumphs Gardening in the Shade Soil conditions for outdoor ferns

I have some ferns that come up every year under our low light N window, but the soil under the overhang is dry and sifty. I find that the ferns die back before the season is out and was wondering if the dry soil may be the cause. Don't ferns need more of a humus soil or damp soil?
Does anyone know what I can do? Will digging some cow manure into some of the dry leaves I have under there help to put some body and moisture back into this soil. I put some compost into it at one time and it dissappeared and became part of the dry soil so it changed nothing. Help please, need someone's good advice.

I'm no fern expert but what little I've observed is that they do like a "humusy" soil that stays fairly moist all the time but not saturated. Also, the ones I've observed in my sister's yard seem to prefer mottled or filtered light as opposed to 100% or mostly shade.

I'm thinking the dry manure may be too strong for them. I could be wrong. I would do a rich humus and peat moss combo with mostly humus, water, and then cover around them with an organic mulch to help hold in the moisture. And if they're entirely in shade, I would move them somewhere with mottled or filtered light.

Forgive me, I'm still a novice gardener and have a lot to learn. Is humus the same as compost?

After reseaching the question a little there seems to be many schools of thought on the difference(s) between compost and humus.

To me, humus is a mixture of decayed organic matter other than cow, chicken, or horse manure. It can include sand and other non-organic matter. Again, to my way of thinking, humus is added to poor soil to help make it more porous and helps retention of moisture for slow release. Depending on the manufacturer, it can have nutrient components but not necessarily.

'Compost' conjures up thoughts of decaying organic matter that's not necessarily 'dry' or completely decayed. It provides nutrients as well as some conditioning of the soil. It may or may not include manure of some kind. 'Green' manure, manure that has not dried completely, is never good to use as far as I'm concerned. It can burn the roots of plants easily. "Less is more" with manure even when it's good and dry. Manure is not for everything. :)

good answer.

and humus is usually no more than one or two plant types (think under a tree) as opposed to compost which is artificial humus, artificial in that it is humans depositing a variety of plant matter (which can contained "pre-consumed" plant matter aka manure) and things like egg shells. paper is processed plant matter in its most primitive form.

humus also may have some kind of moss component.

So does that mean that composted newspaper would be okay to add? Would the chemicals in the newsprint be harmful to living plant matter?

your splitting hairs....feed your soil.

Can I use strips of wet newspaper instead of waiting for it to breakdown?

newspaper breaks down very fast.
very good for the soil!

Thank you.

and, most newspaper ink is made from vegetable dye now anyway

Vegetable ink, that's cool

i have several plants. they like it wet and shaded. mine are on the east side of my west fence. total shade. and boy do they multiply there...

Good luck with your fern, Daisy, but that dry spot under
the eaves is close to the worst place for it. I recommend
underplanting a shrub or tree with it, like what I did
with this maidenhair fern last year. Note the damp humussey
appearance of its spot:


([color:#FF0000][size:8pt]click to enlarge[/size][/color])
To me ferns are worth pampering because they give
refined detail my garden. This particular one is
a division, and took to its new home with no stress
whatsoever, as this picture shows, taken shortly after
it was set last year under a lilac bush.

Thanks for the info. I do have a juniper and a little global in the corner which is doing poorly. Last spring I put in a grassy global perennial which blooms with orange flowers. It wasn't doing too good, but notice it coming in nicely this year. My ferns are up but slow to enlarge. I also noticed that I have to watch because today when I was loosening the soil around them there was a new shoot under the soil and I accidently beheaded one, whether this was a fern or something else I don't know.
I will try the newspaper but think I better rip it real small so I won't have to move the soil too much?
Just curious, what is in your soil that appears white? Is that vermiculite (I think it's called that), which brings me to the question, can I use vermiculite in the soil?

The main point to remember is ferns are happiest in damp and shady places with ample organic matter to grow in.
I have a colony of ostrich ferns under my flowering crab; the original plant mutiplied through underground runners. Each fall I dump bags of leaves on that spot and shred with a mulching mower.

Those bits of perlite you see in the picture came out of my composter,where I dump old potting mix when I repot houseplants. I had applied that compost as mulch.
Adding perlite -- or even kitty litter--clean, of course--{the clay type) for moisture retention is helpful, particularly for absorbing water thenever surface dries out.

... and here's a glimpse of those
ostrich ferns. They're co-located with crocuses,
in the back,which quickly leave the scene after blooming.

Wow, now that's what I call a beautiful garden! Lol, you most certainly have a green thumb!