Redwood sorral, ferns, hellabore, My redwood drops a lot of leaves, but the hellabore does well.

Thanks for the reply. The length of time the fronds stay wrapped really depends on the severity of the winter. This year it was probably about 10 - 12 weeks that they were wrapped and the tree as not watered as we had a bad winter. I have attached some pics to show you what the tree looks like as it always produces nice long fronds. These ones are about 4 - 5 weeks old now but you can clearly see the crown is getting smaller due to new fronds coming from the centre over the years. I dont see any way I can really protect the tree without wrapping it as it gets so cold in the North of England over winter, and I am sure the plant would die if I didnt wrap it.

I planted quite a few last year, they were relatively cheap at Home Depot. The ones in the ground in shady areas with irrigation died pretty quickly. The ones in pots did much better, to the point I had to transplant into the ground as they were getting too big, and brushing up against them to water left me itchy. They succumbed quickly after planting in the ground. Not a scientific study by far, but I don't think I'll attempt them again.

Ian of Desert Northwest hasn't edited these pages for 20 years but he had put a lot of work into them way back when. https://www.angelfire.com/bc/eucalyptus/treeferns/ I think one reason there is less info about the is that the internet is still somewhat US-centric and other than the immediate coasts of CA and southern OR, they just aren't very easy to grow in a continental climate. (Hawaii notwithstanding of course) And they are somewhat uncommon even in CA...even the mildest climates of the CONUS is not quite the goldilocks climate they want. I can tell you Cycas revoluta are waayyyyy more common along the Gulf coast, Florida AND suburban CA & the SW than Tree ferns are in say, Mendocino California. I would even say, driving around greater LA area I saw more non-Cycas revoluta cycads like Macrozamia and Encephalartos, than tree ferns. Cycads are just far less fussy...here is a page about trying to grow tree ferns in South Florida: https://www.south-florida-plant-guide.com/australian-tree-fern.html Even in CA one generally needs to grow the hardier sorts and those are agonizingly slow growing - with a plant that grows inches a year, you need to truly, truly plan ahead for whatever a winter season can throw at it! Because the moment get get even a little far away from the CA coast, other than a few select spots like the LA basin and the immediate Bay Area...record lows would wipe out the faster growing ones like Cyathea cooperi. For example Digging Dog nursery is only a couple miles from the central CA coast, but the owner told me it once hit 11F there, probably during the epic 1990 CA freeze. That would probably kill all but a mature Dicksonia antarctica. Compare with even the known worst "frost pocket" town of greater Melbourne, Victoria, Australia...Coldstream, has a record low of 21F! And a couple miles away in the hills are the native haunts of Dicksonia, that probably never recorded below 25F. Here is a pic I took of the valley where Coldstream lies. Of course those oceanic climate ferns tree have naturalized in Ireland and SW UK, so where they are happy, they are "easy to grow" LOL. We just really don't have areas with those sorts of climates, other than Hawaii, which is slightly different and can grow the truly tropical tree ferns.