Blechnum gibbum ‘Silver Lady’ is an evergreen fern that has an upright rhizome that looks like a trunk. I can reach a height and spread of ninety centimetres, so a very nice compact plant for a garden. Its native range is on the Pacific Islands, from Vanuatu to New Caledonia and its introduced into Fiji. I do feel like I need to add a point of note here because when I was having a read about this plant, there wasn’t much specifically mentioned about the species compared to the cultivar ‘Silver Lady’ and both sounded very much the same. So, the binomial name meaning is as follows:
- Blechnum-from the Latin word blechnon which means a fern. This Latin word itself comes from the Greek word blechnon.
- Gibbum-has a swelling on one side
The fronds of this lovely little fern is glossy bright green in colour. They appear in a symmetrical rosette and with a feathery appearance. New fronds have a lighter colour to the older fronds. Being a fern, there are no flowers produced-to reproduce, spores are produced on the underside of some leaves. The spore-producing leaves have narrower lobes than the sterile leaves.
Being from some Pacific Islands with a tropical climate, this fern needs to be in an environment that is free from frost with high humidity and temperatures above ten degrees celsius in winter. Indirect or filtered light is preferred by this fern and it can tolerate some shade. Leaf scorching is caused by direct sunlight. Soil should be fertile, moist and well-drained. The soil should have a neutral to acidic pH.
Propagation can be through sowing spores in late summer, or through the division of an existing plant-this will take time to establish.
Maintenance is really easy with fern. All you really need to do is remove any dead fronds that appear and your fern will remain nice and tidy. Water in dry periods to ensure the soil remains moist. It doesn’t really suffer from any pests and diseases either.
I do like these ferns, it’s unfortunate that I don’t have anywhere that I can keep one-there is too much direct sunlight on my patio.
https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org.names:17059040-1
https://www.rhs.org.uk/plants/236662/blechnum-gibbum-silver-lady/details