My davallia tyermanii back in the shop after a disastrous holiday

Davallia tyermanii and its davillia acquaintances - (there are thirty to forty different davallia species) is possibly my favourite house fern. Its a close run thing between davallia and phlebodium and as davallia regardless of its tropical home has more similarities to our native ferns in frond shape and colour. So when grown in the home it does feel more as if you are bring the great British outdoors in.

They are generally easily to care for but do have a few peculiarities.

• They love water (but not sitting in it) so water freely once established, if its a new plant and not yet filled out the pot with roots be more sparing. This is a good rule with all houseplants.
• They also love being cramped so dont pot up too often, maybe every other year.
• All ferns are sensitive to plant food - so only ever feed half strength whether house fern or hardy garden plants. And davallias more sensetive than most so do not feed very often at all. They are also sensative to salt build up from feeding, its a good Idea to give them a good flush through every year or so to wash any build up out.
• If its happy - leave it where it is, they don't travel well. I have had a fantastic one in the shop the last few years and when we finished building our house I put it in pride of place in the kitchen, it was a couple of months before I had to take it back to the shop and it seems to have stabalised!

Of course the most distinctive feature of the davallia is its wonderful hairy legs that give its different species and varieties their common names; the hares foot fern, the squirrels foot fern and the deers foot fern amongst others. To anyone thats not an arachnophobe, the longer the rhizomes get, hanging down the side of a pot the better and are perfectly suited to hanging pots for this reason.

The best I ever saw was at the fern societies display stand at Chelsea one year. One of its members, an elderly lady had loned her hanging basket with davallia in. It had become a perfectly spherical ball about twenty inches across with every inch of the surface crisscrossed with hairy legs. No idea how old it was but must of been in double figures at least.

A davallia in the shop ready for its new home