From around the world come fabulous garden performers from the genus Dryopteris. The 225 species of Dryopteris give us the majority of our great garden ferns.
Most species prefer evenly moist soils in woodland garden conditions.
The growth habit is dramatically upright with large, coarse, dark green, semi-evergreen fronds. This is a very structural fern for the moist woodland garden, eventually making a clump 2' wide x 3' tall. Although it is very tolerant of dry sites, a nice damp piece of ground will really produce spectacular results. This selection of the deciduous D. dilatata was made in 1969 on a fern expedition to the Isle of Arran by Jimmy Dyce, and later named in his honor. D. 'Jimmy Dyce' makes a great mass landscape plant for the woodland garden.