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Pruning back evergreen ferns

thomashort

Evergreen ferns are one of those mainstays of the garden, they provide a dark green back drop for many plants within the woodland and shady parts of the garden. Keeping them looking their best is pretty simple and is done ideally in mid spring, such as now. It’s best to do it just as a few of the new fronds (the right name for fern leaves) are starting to unfurl. This is so you don’t damage too many of the new uncurling fronds

The tools and equipment needed are pretty simple

This is a pretty easy task to carry out, main key points to remember is that the new fronds are quite brittle and for that reason I would Mark it 2/5 for difficulty

Here on this fern, you can see the new fronds just starting to uncurl. This is the best time to start cutting them back
You can see in this photo that the old fronds are starting to lay down. This is the plant making room for the new fronds to push though
It’s easy to do, just grab your secateurs, trace the stem of the frond down to the base and cut it off as low as you can
Here you can see the new fronds in the middle and the fronds that we have cut back are around the outside
Clean out the old leaves and rubbish around the new fronds
While you are cleaning out the old rubbish, just be careful, there might be a few creatures hibernating in there! Here a queen bee was disturbed and off course I left them bee
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