NHS is very pleased to co-sponsor this event with the Hardy Fern Foundation. We thank Richie Steffen for generously sharing his fern cultivation expertise with us.

Do you have dark, shady places in your garden? Are you in need of a fern for dry shade or perhaps a wet, waterlogged location? Richie Steffen, Hardy Fern Foundation board member and executive director of the Elisabeth C. Miller Botanical Garden, will discuss the best ferns for these and other special conditions–in other words, how to find the right fern for the right spot. He will also present the ideal ferns for groundcovers, species with colorful foliage and those that are especially striking in containers.

Speaker’s bio:

Few people have a passion for plants or an excitement about gardening greater than Richie Steffen. He is the executive director for the Miller Garden, overseeing the development of the garden, its programs and rare plant collections. His expertise comes from over thirty-five years of experience in the horticultural field, with the last 24 years spent at the Miller Garden. Ferns have become a specialty for him, and he maintains extensive collections at the Miller Garden and his home garden. Richie has traveled to Europe, Japan, Chile, New Zealand, Costa Rica and numerous U.S. locations to study ferns and other plants. He is active in the gardening community and is a past president of the Hardy Fern Foundation and the Northwest Horticultural Society. A noted lecturer, writer and photographer, Richie is the co-author of the Plant Lover’s Guide to Ferns with his friend and fern mentor Sue Olsen.

To learn more about ferns and their many uses in ornamental horticulture, please visit the Hardy Fern Foundation, which began as a NHS study group in the 1970s.