A fernery is a specialized garden for the cultivation and display of ferns.
A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the display, cultivation, or enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The garden can incorporate both natural and man-made materials. The most common form today is a residential garden, but the term garden has traditionally been a more general one. Zoos, which display wild animals in simulated natural habitats, were formerly called zoological gardens. Western gardens are almost universally based on plants, with garden often signifying a shortened form of botanical garden. Some traditional types of eastern gardens, such as Zen gardens, use plants sparsely or not at all.
A fern is a member of a group of vascular plants that reproduce via spores and have neither seeds nor flowers. They differ from mosses by being vascular, i.e., having specialized tissues that conduct water and nutrients and in having life cycles in which the sporophyte is the dominant phase. Ferns have complex leaves called megaphylls, that are more complex than the microphylls of clubmosses. Most ferns are leptosporangiate ferns, sometimes referred to as true ferns. They produce coiled fiddleheads that uncoil and expand into fronds. The group includes about 10,560 known extant species.
In many countries, ferneries are indoors or at least sheltered or kept in a shadehouse to provide a moist environment, filtered light and protection from frost and other extremes; on the other hand, some ferns native to arid regions require protection from rain and humid conditions, and grow best in full sun. In mild climates, ferneries are often outside and have an array of different species that grow under similar conditions.
In 1855, parts of England were gripped by ‘pteridomania’ (the fern craze). This term was coined by Charles Kingsley, clergyman, naturalist (and later author of The Water Babies). It involved both British and exotic varieties being collected and displayed; many associated structures were constructed and paraphernalia was used to maintain the collections. [1]
Pteridomania or Fern-Fever was a Victorian craze for ferns. Decorative arts of the period presented the fern motif in pottery, glass, metal, textiles, wood, printed paper, and sculpture, with ferns "appearing on everything from christening presents to gravestones and memorials".
Charles Kingsley was a broad church priest of the Church of England, a university professor, social reformer, historian and novelist. He is particularly associated with Christian socialism, the working men's college, and forming labour cooperatives that failed but led to the working reforms of the progressive era. He was a friend and correspondent with Charles Darwin. He was also the uncle of traveller and scientist Mary Kingsley.
The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby is a children's novel by Charles Kingsley. Written in 1862–63 as a serial for Macmillan's Magazine, it was first published in its entirety in 1863. It was written as part satire in support of Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species. The book was extremely popular in England, and was a mainstay of British children's literature for many decades, but eventually fell out of favour in part due to its prejudices against Irish, Jews, Catholics, and Americans.
In 1859, the Fernery at Tatton Park Gardens beside Tatton Hall had been built to a design by George Stokes, Joseph Paxton's assistant and son-in-law, to the west of the conservatory to house tree ferns from New Zealand and a collection of other ferns. [2] The Fernery was also seen in the TV miniseries Brideshead Revisited . [3]
Tatton Park Gardens consist of formal and informal gardens in Tatton Park to the south of Tatton Hall, Cheshire, England. Included in the gardens are an Italian garden, a walled garden, a rose garden and the Japanese garden. The buildings in the garden are the Conservatory, the Fernery and the Showhouse. The gardens are owned by the National Trust and administered by Cheshire East Council. They are on the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens and have been designated at Grade II*. The gardens are open to the public at advertised times.
Tatton Hall is a country house in Tatton Park near Knutsford, Cheshire, England. It is designated as a Grade I-listed building and is open to the public.
Sir Joseph Paxton was an English gardener, architect and Member of Parliament, best known for designing the Crystal Palace and for cultivating the Cavendish banana, the most consumed banana in the Western world.
In 1874, the fernery in Benmore Botanic Garden(part of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh) was built by James Duncan (a plant collector and sugar refiner). This was a large and expensive project since the fernery was based in a heated conservatory. In 1992, it was listed Historic Scotland for its architectural and botanical value and has been described by the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland as “extremely rare and unique in its design”. [4]
Benmore Botanic Garden; formerly known as the Younger Botanic Garden, is a large botanical garden situated in Strath Eachaig at the foot of Beinn Mhòr, on the Cowal peninsula, in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. The gardens are on the west side of the A815 road from Dunoon, between the Holy Loch and Loch Eck, and include footbridges across the River Eachaig.
The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) is a scientific centre for the study of plants, their diversity and conservation, as well as a popular tourist attraction. Founded in 1670 as a physic garden to grow medicinal plants, today it occupies four sites across Scotland—Edinburgh, Dawyck, Logan and Benmore—each with its own specialist collection. The RBGE's living collection consists of more than 13,302 plant species, whilst the herbarium contains in excess of 3 million preserved specimens.
James Duncan (1834–1905) was a Scottish sugar refiner and businessman, who then became a philanthropist and art collector. His house and grounds in Glasgow became Benmore Botanic Garden, managed by Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.
In 1903, Hever Castle in Kent was acquired and restored by the American millionaire William Waldorf Astor who used it as a family residence. He added the Italian Garden (including a fernery) to display his collection of statuary and ornaments. [5]
Hever Castle is located in the village of Hever, Kent, near Edenbridge, 30 miles (48 km) south-east of London, England. It began as a country house, built in the 13th century. From 1462 to 1539, it was the seat of the Boleyn family.
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west. The county also shares borders with Essex along the estuary of the River Thames, and with the French department of Pas-de-Calais through the Channel Tunnel. The county town is Maidstone.
William Waldorf "Willy" Astor, 1st Viscount Astor, was a wealthy American-born attorney, politician, philanthropist, and newspaper publisher. Astor moved with his family to England in 1891, became a British subject in 1899, and was made a peer as Baron Astor in 1916 and Viscount Astor in 1917 for his contributions to war charities. He was a prominent member of the Astor family.
