Actually, it's not hard to grow ferns from spores, it just takes careful preparation and patience. If you would like, I can send you spores for lady fern and painted fern for postage. I can email you instructions if you'd like. Send me an email if interested. kms

CMK- I am usually trying to save money on plants [g], and with something I like enough to buy multiples of, I am usually just picking up more when they are at bargain prices. I try to go to a few of my favorite local plant sales in the spring every year and JPFerns have been about $4. a pot and not special cultivars. The one 'Burgundy Lace' that I have, I did buy at a nursery in the fall for 50% off it's $16. original price and I'm happy I did. I have seen most of the cultivars mentioned here and I think 'Burgundy Lace' appealed to me the most. I think it is more silver than the Pictum for sure. I am a big fan of 'Ghost' and I have at least three of those already. It is very vigorous and well behaved and I enjoy it. I like the color, although I wouldn't describe it as white or pale at all. I have a lot of shade in my garden, but a lot of Maple tree roots and so my 'shade' gardens are still not what I want them to be. I keep working on the soil and adding more plants every year, experimenting a lot to find perennials that will tolerate dry shade. I have a bed surrounding a Bloodgood Japanese Maple with burgundys and golds too. I do have some JPFerns there with the silver in them and they do seem to work fine to me. Two plants I might mention for those tones, I added a 'Fire Island' Hosta last year and that is quite gold/yellow. And I just planted a 'Frosted Violet' Heuchera under the Bloodgood and they really complement each other.

may as well move this post on down since the other one is the correct one.....

geranium macrorhizum does have a variegated cultivar...I've got it. Don't have the name with me. It's doing great in my dry (pines not as dry as maples) shade. I also have a silver pulmonaria ('Majeste') in my dry shade. Love it! but it does get some watering where it is, so not sure about maple competition. I like the idea of H. Kabitan too. Its a quick grower for easy propogation. I've been looking for Ajuga 'Toffee Chip' to fill some never-get-watered areas, but haven't seen it yet. I got some 'Chocolate Chip' last year which is working well in a neglected part of the yard. I used to have epimedium in my dry shade, but it was kinda boring and spready and I was never close enough to see the tiny flowers, so I moved it to the woodland edge. Many carex should do well there. I have 'Treasure Island' which is a low ground cover type. Its cream and green and brightens things up. Looks like bamboo. There is one similar that has a gold edge.