Polystichum polyblepharum Shiny Holly Fern - Lace Fern

Polystichum Shiny Holly Fern is a small, hardy, evergreen fern that is remarkably visual. With its regular spreading habit, shiny and tough fronds of intense green and finely cut, this variety approaches the perfection found in high-end artificial plants. In spring, its young crozier-shaped fronds, covered in huge coppery scales, are spectacular. This polystichum, very at home in damp and shady rockeries, is also a beautiful plant to showcase in a lovely pot on the terrace.

The Polystichum Shiny Holly Fern, sometimes marketed as Polystichum 'Spiny Holly', is a slow-growing terrestrial fern related to Polystichum neolobatum, a hardy species native to China. It is a perennial plant of the Dryopteridaceae family. The plant has a dense stump, from which numerous beautiful ascending and slightly oblique, bipinnate and tough fronds of a beautiful glossy green with closely packed pinnae, almost prickly, are produced, crossed by a copper-coloured main vein or rachis. The whole forms a dense clump with a spreading habit that measures about 40 cm (16 in) in all directions. As with all ferns, the young fronds emerging from the ground are magnificent. Coiled in croziers, they are covered in rusty scales and unfurl majestically.

This Shiny Holly Fern thrives in clear and cool undergrowth, in flower beds, along pathways or in a shady rockery, always in not overly dense shade and planted in soil rich in leaf compost, that is slightly moist but well drained. Polystichum is a very diverse and particularly decorative genus throughout the year in most species and varieties. Fully hardy, the Polystichum Shiny Holy Fern is a small, highly ornamental plant, ideal for decorating a terrace or balcony. In the garden, it can be accompanied by shade-loving saxifrages and bergenias, or form beautiful borders, associated with Hart's-tongues, Meconopsis, or Disporum.