I am in zone 9b and the ferns are outside growing wild year round. Our drops are occasional into the low 30s and rarely upper 20s. You may want to acclimate them to the change by leaving them out during the warmer months and letting them get used to cooling nights. Sudden changes may cause some leaflet losses.

Debra, I've never tried this kind of thing before but had fallen in love with another tropical plant that I've been trying to keep going inside over the winter. I've included advice on Mandevilla vines from the NYBG site. What they suggest is similar to what I'm doing with the Duranta 'Saphire Showers' I found on sale at the end of summer---- cut it back by more than half, keep it near a warm window, water when it looks droopy, and don't expect much. The issue I worried about most was white flies/pests. I wasn't surprised to find these around the plant. I've sprayed mine a few times with Safer and am keeping an eye on the plant --- ready to dump it if the situation gets out of control. Good luck with Mandy! Molie Here is a link that might be useful: Plant Talk Inside the New York Botanical Garden

woodnative - "You could try growing it on a large tray of wet stones and pebbles (so there is always water evaporating around the plant yet the bottom of the pot is raised up out of the water)" - I have tried this previously with my peace lilies and it didn't quite work out for me. Marcy - I've researched the Macho Fern and I agree that might be the better choice for indoors since I'm not able to amp up the humidity and finding it difficult to set up 6500k lights over it. (personally not a fan of white LED lights in bedrooms) Since the last post I had a 1.2W LED Desk Lamp set up to be right over the Boston fern, and found it to make no difference (i didn't mist or water as wooden skewer is still wet) --> stems are just bending over and more leaves turning brown, shrivelling and falling. So I've read some people had great success with BF by placing them in NW areas of their homes outdoors. So I've now done that (the picture below shows the NW shade side from my house)... Would this location be okay? Also I feel I need to give the BF some moisturiser (fertilising, misting, watering) but not sure on how to go about? It was freshly watered on Monday (the day I brought it from the nursery) and today (Friday) the wooden skewer still comes out with bits of the mix stuck onto it, so not sure if watering might hurt it more? I read some people water theirs "twice a week from the top until the water runs out from the bottom of the plastic pot, and on Sunday they fill a big plastic tote with water and a small amount of miracle grow and let the ferns sit in the water for 5-10 min." Anyone else do something similar or suggest something else?

Mindshift, Believe you're right about them doing better with more light. Ours were set directly under a ~30 ft Shumard with the neighbor's large live oak shading from the south where they may have gotten 1 to 2 hours of more direct light in the late afternoon during the growing months. I did keep two in pots under a magnolia in our side yard for a couple seasons where they survived in dense shade, but grew very little. So under the oaks, they probably didn’t develop much root to compete with the trees in a single season. Unfortunately the shallow tree roots prevent prepping the area as you suggest, so whatever I plant there will have to tolerate the native blackland prairie clay with only improvements made by surface applications over time. Thanks for the link to some other options. Irving Ragweed, You described my “easy” expectations exactly. Feeling humbled by the fail, but glad to learn I’m in good company. :-) Believe you and Mindshift captured the most likely problem: not enough light for good root establishment in a single season combined with insufficient moisture to survive or emerge from dormancy in competition with the tree roots. Carrie751, Would like to give ferns one more try in that spot with some additional pampering. A native so well proven in north Texas would be wonderful. Thanks for your offer – will message. Lin, PKponder, Thanks for bending my expectations back towards "easy" with your positive experiences. Guidance on the amount of water they need is good to know; I most likely would have missed if ours were trying to break dormancy very early in this unusual winter and imagine I may have let them die during that long dry spell we had in February or March before we started running the sprinklers again. OT note: Apologies for the delayed replies. Tried yesterday, but have been having trouble with GW posts the last few days – some just vanish when I submit and others appear to double post. Suspect the browser privacy software may have been having a bad reaction to a recent site change.