Good Morning,
If you are thinking of joining us on Sunday, August 26th, for the fern identification class, please email us at fernwoodnursery@fairpoint.net. If you contact us through a blog post, it may be a less reliable way of getting you on the class list. Emailing or calling is best. There are still plenty of openings and plenty of time to sign up. If you visit our classes and more page, you will find more information.
Thank you! We wouldn’t want to miss your request to join us!
Happy day to all!

Identifying Ferns

Athyrium ‘Victoriae’

Athyriums, Dryopteris, Adiantum, and Matteuccia. Lady Ferns, Male Ferns, Ostrich Ferns, Painted Ferns, Maidenhair, Oak Fern and Narrow Beech Fern, Sensitive Fern. Some of the latin names for ferns, along with a (small…the fern kingdom is large!) sampling of common names.
We’ll be teaching a class on identifying ferns on Sunday, August 26th from 1:00 to 3:00. Check it out and sign up here.

Thelypters noveboracensis

Here at the nursery, we have a large selection of ferns that we sell. When developing or adding to an existing shade garden, ferns are often included in the design. Ferns grow in a wide variety of conditions, from dry to wet and in deep shade to sun.
Identification of some groups of ferns can be confusing. For example, in the genus Dryopteris, the differences between species can be difficult to sort out. For some people, all ferns can look very similar to one another and can be difficult to tell apart. We’re hoping to make that a bit easier through the information shared in the class. If you are looking for specific ferns to add to your garden landscape or simply wanting to identify the ferns you see in their natural settings, this class is for you!

Are We There Yet? High Summer, I mean.

And how did we arrive so soon? It is high summer, isn’t it? The first cut of hay is in. The squash and tomatoes and green beans are asserting their jungle personalities. We may still get one more decent harvest of peas before the heat does them in. Swimming holes are still but beckoning. The pray for rain is profound.
No longer do I come in casually from the garden with a basketful of spring greens, the earliest of radishes, a tub of energy-rich spinach, and think “oh, how nice to have a few tidbits, the earth’s first offerings”. Now it’s full-on, two canning kettles bubbling, the threat of squash taking over our lives. And yet. And yet, we have the creeping thoughts of winter, of firewood needing to be split and stacked ( oh, Denise, don’t mention it aloud!), of propagation for next year’s nursery season, of putting food up for the winter larder.
A brief account of summer from Gary Paulsen’s book Clabbered Dirt And Sweet Grass…it sums it up…this life, these seasons, this rhythm.

“With haying done there is not a separation of work. It continues. Always. But there is another line to cross and a new time comes then, comes then to the seasons- high summer. meterorological data means nothing, technical names mean nothing, the divisions are like music, like stops in a symphony. First thaw, early spring, breakup, middle spring, late spring, early summer, midsummer, high summer, late summer, early fall, Indian summer, first killing freeze, high fall, late fall, first snow, early winter, midwinter, high winter, late winter, first thaw, early spring, breakup…more names than months, more names than days, more names because more names are needed. For the luck”.

Lakes And Ponds And Little Swimmers

We have two adoptive grandchildren here visiting for a month. They are 6 and 7 and live in Jacksonville, North Carolina, a place undoubtedly hot and way more congested than our little town here in Maine boasting a mere 1000 residents. What a joy to have these two little spirits around! They are lovely and chatty and interested in all the goings on here at the farm and nursery. What a gift to be able to leave the pavement and noise and busyness of their neighborhood back home to enjoy the quiet woods, the lush gardens, and the lakes and ponds. Oh, the lakes and ponds! Not quite accomplished swimmers when they came, but, oh, so wanting to be little fish confident and frolicking in the cool waters of Maine! Both had never swum in a natural body of water (can you imagine?), so Rick and I have made it our business to take them swimming as often as possible. Of course, the weather has been quite conducive to swimming! They have both gone from carefully wading into the water up to their skinny little knees to launching off of Rick’s back to perform the ‘all kid’s abandoned delight” of cannonballs. Again, and again, and again. How proud they both are! They emerge from the shallows,”We can swim underwater”! Hooray!
We are so very, very lucky to have such water abundance here in Maine. A true blessing. A resource we must honor and protect. Where would one be if we didn’t have a natural pool of water to cannonball into?
Kate Barnes wrote a fun poem about (a few) of the lakes and ponds here in Maine, I’ll share it with you now…

Lakes And Ponds: Some Blue Spots On The Maine Highway Map

There’s Blunder Pond and Bluffer Pond,
Molasses Pond and Bean;
There’s Scraggly Lake and Ragged Lake; there’s Silver,
Clear, and Green;
Bear Pond, Caribou, Beaver, Mink; Moose Pond and
Eagle Lake,
White Horse Lake and Spider Lake, Panther Pond, and Snake;
Hound and Otter, Togue and Salmon, Loon, and
Swan, and Duck.
There’s Hot Brook Lake and Cold Stream Pond;
There’s White Pond and there’s Black;
Lobster Lake and Bean Pot Lake; Shin Pond for a stew;
( Toddy Pond will make you cheerful, Brandy Pond will too,)
Hay Lake, Harrow Lake, Chain Of Ponds; Buttermilk and Mud;
White Oak, Cedar, Seven Tree, Elm, Mill Pond,
Meadow, Flood;
Meddybemps and Pocomoonshine; Simsquish, Skitacook,
Syslododsis, Nahinakanta, UghLake and Ticook;
Indian Pond and Soldier Pond, Polly Pond and Jim;
Round Pond, Square Lake, Corner Pond;
Cut Lake and Old Stream;
Endless Lake and Desolation, St. Froid in the snow;
Flying Pond and The Enchanted, it’s haunted stream below;
Blue spots on the road map with their blue names printed by,
Many words for “water,” many eyes that see the sky.

Poem by Kate Barnes

4th Of July!

Hello Friends, Fernwood Nursery will be closed tomorrow (Wednesday) while we celebrate the 4th of July with our family. A little break in the action and a much needed day to relax. Hope it is a fun and relaxing day for all of you as well. We’ll be back at it on Thursday!