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FIRST IMPRESSIONS:  This clump forming fern is reliable and easy to grow in shaded gardens and woodlands.  The delicate lacy foliage is a delight to behold and new fronds are formed throughout the growing season to create a fresh appearance.

HABITAT & HARDINESS:  Lady fern are found in woods, swamps and thickets, throughout eastern US, east of the Rockies.  At home in average to moist soils in full or part shade.

Plants are hardy from USDA Zones 4-8.

PLANT DESCRIPTION:  This deer and rabbit resistant deciduous fern has  lacy foliage.  Lady fern have 2 to 3-pinnate, finely-divided, lanceolate, light green fronds which grow in a dense circular shuttlecock-like clump to 2-3′ tall. Each frond has twenty to thirty pairs of elliptic non-opposite leaflets with narrow pointed tips. Each leaflet is divided into subleaflets with sori and indusia are found on the undersides.

CULTURAL & MAINTENANCE NEEDS: No insect or disease problem.

LANDSCAPE USES:  This is a good Groundcover for a Shade Garden or Woodland.

COMPANION & UNDERSTUDY PLANTS:  Try pairing Athyrium filix-femina with Adiantum pedatum, Aquilegia canadensis, Athyrium filix-femina, Carex albicans, Carex plantaginea, Heuchera americana ‘Dales Strain’, Phlox stolonifera or Polystichum acrostichoides.

Dryopteris marginalis could be substituted in some situations.

TRIVIA:  Genus name comes from the Greek athyros meaning “doorless” in regards to the slowly opening hinged indusia (spore covers). The specific epithet comes from Latin filix meaning fern and femina meaning woman. Hence the common name of lady fern.