you know one of the traditional things
that we do here in Louisiana and really
all across the southeast is saying
beautiful ferns up on our porches and
around our patios ferns are fabulous for
shady areas but it often times get a
request for a great fern for a bright
sunny area where the Sun shines all day
and y'all ferns just don't like Sun all
day long but there is a fern substitute
that does a fabulous job in the Sun and
looks like a fern and that's this
asparagus fern now this is not a true
fern it's not even related to the ferns
this is a flowering plant and you can
see when we look over here at this
branch these beautiful little white
flowers appearing and that tells you
immediately this is not a fern it's a
flowering plant these will actually turn
into little green balls that have a seed
inside of them and finally turn bright
red and that adds to the ornamentation
of this plant this lush beautiful fine
textured foliage is really tough as
nails you can use it in a shady area and
you can also use it in full Sun it
doesn't have true leaves these are all
stems these flattened structures are
actually modified stems no true leaves
on this plant that makes it drought
tolerant doesn't lose a lot of water
rapidly in addition to help make this
plant even tougher it has water storage
organs you see these here on the root
system these aren't bulbs you can't use
them to propagate it but these for water
and that makes asparagus ferns even more
resilient in these hanging baskets so if
you want a nice cascading ferny plant
for that hot sunny dry area and you at
your wits in what to use think about the
asparagus fern a wonderful choice for
those locations
forget it growing I'm Dan Gill with the
LSU AG center