In general, pests are not a threat to ferns. Slugs and snails, never ones to miss a treat, occasionally chainsaw new spring growth, so precautions should be out early in the season. Bait should be broadcast about rather than positioned as a dinner bell adjacent toa vulnerable plant. Improved baits include several that remain potent after being wet and do not affect bird populations.

Traps with assorted lures, including beer and coffee grounds, are efficient, but not particularly attractive to clean. Aphids will land periodically and are more dangerous for their tendency to spread diseases than for eating foliage. Leafhoppers (arriving in 1998 in Washington State) appear on selected species and cultivars and can disfigure foliage, especially of the assorted and plentiful Dryopteris cultivars. These pests can be restrained, but so far not controlled, with the judicious application of a systemic insecticide. Oil-based sprays suffocate ferns and should never be used near them. I have also had poor luck with soap-based remedies. Light applications of other commercial products, especially those containing resmethrin have not harmed my ferns. All chemicals should be used with caution and tested on a nonvaluable plant (bracken perhaps) before applying them to anything special. Finally, I recommend limiting the application to the infected plant rather than spraying the entire garden to clean a few plants of their bugs, but then I am one who would rather not spray at all. Deer populations, especially on the U.S. East Coast, are a serious garden and personal (Lyme and other disease carrying) menace, although unless really starving will generally leave ferns alone. (They tend to prefer roses and other ornamentals.) How- ever they will eat whatever necessary to stay alive and, in spite of many imaginative repellent concoctions,will only avoid gardens when fenced out by a barrier at least 6 ft. (2 m) tall. Rabbits, meanwhile, consider the fern garden their personal salad bar and can and will demolish a collection over night. Given these basics, most of the temperate ferns described in this book should provide years of beauty in the woodland.An exception must be made for ornate cultivars, however. I am talking about varieties with epithets such as cristatum (crested), capitatum (with a head or large crest), ramosum (branched), ramo-cristatum, and grandiceps (with a large terminal crest). These are the soloists of the crowd. Far be it from them to harmonize in the woodland chorus. Treat them as specimen plants, placing them center stage if you choose or in a featured pot somewhere.