'Jurassic Gold' Alpine Wood Ferns

Dryopteris wallichiana 'Jurassic Gold': Alpine Wood Fern. 

A plant to certainly give your garden a golden glow and illuminate those difficult to reach shady spots. An upright modern fern that is all the rage amongst fern lovers, its new growth is a wonderful pale orange-yellow, maturing to green. It also has the advantage of being nearly evergreen in most of the UK, but fronds will die back in autumn.

Ferns are delivered pot-grown, year round. 
Browse our other perennial plants or garden shrubs.

Features

• Bright, pale yellow new foliage
• Semi-evergreen
• Upright, large
• Most soils & positions
• Hardy
• Native
• Frond length to 1.5-2m
• Technical RHS Award of Garden Merit

Growing Jurassic Gold Ferns

Dryopteris are flexible and hardy ferns that are not fussy about soil quality or too much shade. They only need moisture and good drainage to thrive. Well-established plants are quite drought tolerant, but as with any plant will need watering until then. Remove the dead fronds attached to the base of the fern to let more light in for the remaining ones.

In Your Garden Design

The golden lustre it provides in darker areas of the garden is fabulous for city plots overlooked by tall buildings or large trees. It would look fabulous in a gravel patch with Heuchera Marmalade and with a backdrop of an evergreen winter Jasmine such as Nudiflorum. Intersperse with Primula veris, and a bright, lime green hosta.

Did You Know?

Bob Hollister of Country Garden Plants found this gold-ish variety growing on Dorset's Jurassic Coast: the parent species is not native, so it presumably escaped from a garden. Introduced in 2018, registered under the code Hollasic.
The parent species has an RHS Award of Garden Merit, and we predict that this variety will get one too.