Garden Inventory: Sword Fern (Polystichum munitum)

Garden Inventory is a series where I begin an inventory of all the plants and trees in my garden. Along with some of my own pictures, I will link to various sources of information about each plant and tree so we can learn a little more together.

I would also like to highlight your special plants and tress. Pass along your favorite plants in the comments and I will use them for future Garden Inventory posts. — Douglas

Garden Inventory: Sword Fern (Polystichum munitum)

“Polystichum munitum (Western Sword Fern) is an evergreen fern native to western North America, where it is one of the most abundant ferns. It occurs along the Pacific coast from southeast Alaska south to southern California, and also inland east to southeastern British Columbia, northern Idaho and western Montana, with isolated populations in interior northern British Columbia, the Black Hills in South Dakota, and on Guadalupe Island off Baja California. — Wikipedia.org

I have a couple of sword ferns in the garden, both imported from a friend’s hillside, where they have far too many. They are trying to remove quite a few to make more room for a few more natives that they would prefer to have in their garden. They focus heavily on native plants and native wildlife in their garden, so there are some plants that could provide more a food source for the birds and other wildlife win their garden.

I have a plant of spending a day collecting a large amount of these ferns to fill in some of the bare spots in the very shady back garden in an effort to green it up a bit, especially during the summer when many of the other plants tend to go dormant.

Photos of Sword Fern with closeups of leaves, growing habit, and stems.

More information on Lemon:

Previously on Garden Inventory: