Dave, I did mean bone meal :) I'll put some nice combo fertilizer out this weekend. Thanks for the info. Paul, I certainly hope they will produce because just 60 miles north of here is Stockton and that area produces great, huge amounts commercially! They do have a different soil make up, it being delta flood plains, but the summer and winters are the same. Your mugginess is what we don't have here in the summers; just lots of dry heat! Elaine

Those are just spores on the fertile fronds. It's how ferns reproduce, since ferns don't bloom and produce seeds like flowering plants. It's nothing to worry about. If anything, it means your fern is happy. I found this image online just to provide another example. I bought one earlier this year and mounted it. So it hasn't yet produced any spores. Although, it has been growing lots of new leaves. I hung it on the front of my house and get asked about it quite often.I had one of these many years ago and wanted to try mounting one myself. I love the way it turned out. It's getting some direct morning sun in this photo, some direct sun as it's setting in the evening, and it gets shaded by the overhang of my roof throughout the hottest part of the day. All I do to care for it is spray it with the garden hose in the evening, so that it can soak up as much water as it needs during the night and dry out in the morning sun. Such interesting plants.

Posted by kwie2011 The nursery tried to tell me it wad a type of moss, but this was a vascular plant with true roots in the soil. Actually, while the nursery was in error referring to it as a moss (though Selag are commonly and erroneously called "club mosses"), the nursery wasn't as far off as you may have thought. Selaginella are "primitive plants" related to mosses and ferns. Like ferns and mosses, Selag reproduce via spores with a free living gametophyte generation and the sporophyte generation being dominant. It is debatable as to whether Selag have true roots. Instead the root like appendages are referred to as "rhizophores ". While Selag, unlike true mosses, does possess a vascular system, it is a more simplified vascular system than is found in ferns.

Hello Donn, Pretty much all ferns have issues with wind and salt. You should protect them from those as much as possible. All the ferns you have selected prefer slightly acid soil, not super rich, but with some nutrients. A little peat, leaf litter and pine chips worked into the soil is preferred. They respond well to fertilization with a little fish emulsion two or three times during the growing season. They like neither wet shade, nor dry shade, but prefer it kind of peaty and slightly moist. I plant mine in dry shade and then water well twice a week if it doesn't rain, since I don't have moist shade. I would give each a good soak in a bucket of pure water for an hour, and if the soil is prepared, go ahead and plant. You don't have much to gain from putting them in pots unless you want to buy time while preparing the soil. But it takes a fern a good long time to settle in, so it's best to get them going in the soil where they'll be living. If you have high winds and want to protect them, I suggest a nice hemlock hedge if you can afford it. Ferns look great when planted in among hostas too. They take basically the same culture. A small corner of my garden: Best of luck, Lainey