A shady yard can still bloom with style. These hardy plants thrive with little cleanup, adding quiet color and structure ...

What: Japanese painted fern, or eared lady fern, brings amazing and colorful foliage to the shade garden. The silvers and purplish-reds that are overlaid on the fronds brightens any shadowy situation.

Perennial plants survive from one growing season to the next, regrowing from their roots each spring. Discover gorgeous, fast-growing perennials that provide quick color and texture for shade gardens.

In our area, the time to prepare beds for planting ferns is in the spring since all but the hardiest species die back in our winter temperatures.

The Chicago Botanic Garden, Glencoe, Ill., recently released the results of a 12-year evauation of 26 types of athyrium, the plant genus that includes about 200 species of ferns. Of those evaluated, ...

English ivy creeps all over the place, and pachysandra patches repeat in every yard as if they were spit out by a cosmic photocopier. But ferns, with their elegant fronds and varieties that come in ...

You cannot have too many ferns in a shady garden – or any sort of garden. I don't mean the good old ostrich ferns that rampage around mercilessly. I mean all those gorgeous collectible ferns and the ...