Ferns for American Gardens (ISBN 0881925985)

Book Description:
Unusual in its specific focus on cold-hardy ferns, this encyclopedic treatment is based on Mickel's personal experience as a scientist and curator of ferns at the New York Botanical Garden as well as his years as a home gardener.

The best book on ferns for the gardener:
Dr. Mickel's Ferns for American Gardens is the most comprehensive and useful book on ferns for the professional and amateur gardener alike. For those of us who are plagued with deer in our gardens, ferns provide alternative deer-proof plantings. The variety and beauty of these plants have often been underrated, but they fill an important element in the shade garden as they provide texture not often found in other plants. What better way to get to know these plants than with this book. Chapters show the structure of the plant, how to use ferns in the landscape, and beautiful photographs of the many genera, species and cultivars, all listed in alphabetical order. Each plant shows practical attributes such as height, hardiness zones and difficulty of cultivation. A real plus. It also has a chapter on ferns for specific conditions such as sunny conditions, rock gardens etc. The Web now allows the interested gardener to acquire more unusual ferns, and this book will steer you to make the correct decisions on what would suit your garden best. I rate this book as a must-have on ferns.

Review of Ferns for American Gardens:
This book has excellent illustrations of a variety of ferns with an description of each. Well worth having for anyone interested in a fern garden.

Ferns for American Gardens:
This book has a tremendous amount of information concerning ferns in America. It is certainly well worth the sixteen dollars I paid for it. It contains a guide for flowering plants that you can partner with ferns. It gives descriptions of the flowering plants as well as their periods of bloom. Also, in the back of the book is a glossary of terms which is very helpful and an index of common names. If you need to identify a type of fern, this is the book to use. The pictures are very good and the descriptions are concise. Scientific names as well as common names are given. Propagating ferns is discussed as well as pests and hardiness zones. A list of mail order sources for hardy ferns is listed at the back of the book. Lots of information is given throughout. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn about or grow ferns.

Ferns for the American Garden:
Good book on ferns, one of the better. Wish there were more pictures. It's so hard to identify different ferns.

"Fernishing" information:
In this excellent book Mickel furnishes an enormous amount of information about ferns without becoming pedantic or over-bearing. It is reflective of the author's life passion and years of hands-on gardening experience with these plants. The book is nicely organized so that a neophyte such as myself can reference it easily yet it provides enough in-depth information to satisfy the more advanced "fern-aholic". There are great sections on each species detailing origin, ease of cultivation and habit. Although one can tell Mickel never met a fern he didn't like, he makes it engagingly obvious in some cases which are his favorites and why. There is a great section on Matteuccia struthiopteris(ostrich fern) which includes a recipe for preparing and cooking the fiddleheads. Differing from the cook's point of view, the gardener steps in to assure us that cutting the fiddleheads brings no lasting damage to the fern! In another section on the Himalayan maidenhair fern he shares his delight in the accidental discovery that this species is adaptable to indoor cultivation. The general information on fern structure and reproduction is concise and easily understood. There are a host of new terms in Fern World to be grasped, such as crosier, sori and rachis but Mickel makes them all comprehensible. Gardening with ferns, their prefered habitats, companion plants and even propagation are addressed as this is far more than a field identification book. There are an assortment of good line drawings and small color photographs of the individual fern species, but if this book has a weakness I would say that the photos are undersized and there are not enough of them. However, this is not an opulent coffee-table book but a good solid reference book which is easy to use and full of helpful, practical information for the fern-garderner at what ever level. I still rate it as a solid five star garden book.