You could if you provide enough food. My recommendation would be to not especially if they are temperate ferns as opposed to tropical. Unless we mimic a plants' natural growing conditions we often never see a plant reach it's full potential but that is my opinion.

Scott

I need help with woodwardia orientalis. I have this rescued fern and it's dying. It has like one frond coming up and nothing else. I moved it from the shade into the sun location, but my sun is very mild in San Francisco. It needs more light to make another frond. The planter has peat moss, homemade compost, bagged soil woody type stuff, horticultural sand, and clay from pure clay cat litter, plus the mix that I got to start out with from somewhere, but I don't know what is in that. If it dies I can not buy another anywhere at all. In the ground, in the shade, it would not make frond, half the root died and was being eating by earth worms.

Howdy, Tropical! :-)

I think you'll guess that I recommend a 5-1-1 mix with Fir/Pine bark as the base ingredient.
I would mix together the 5 parts bark, 1 or 2 parts coarse Perlite, and 1 part compost or potting soil
to bind the other ingredients together. I fertilize every few weeks, if I remember.

You probably saw this older Thread linked to my latest Thread on re-potting my Chainfern:

Giant Chainfern - Spring 2009 re-pot (pics)

Josh

If it lives it will definitely go in the ground, in the future. Thanks for the soil less mix formula. I will make a note of it. This one is supposted to orientalis but right now, you can't tell what it is.

Here is a link that might be useful: woodwardia orientalis

My apologies!
I read soil less mix and I thought you were going to be growing this in a planter/pot.

Looks to be buried a bit deep....
I like to have the crown above the soil-line, and then I just mulch with leaves during the Winter.

Josh

The fern is in a raised planter box. I have two of them so this is a photo of the other one.

Here is a link that might be useful: planter box

The fern was doing ok, but it one of the fronds got broken off in high winds. The root looked healthy when I put it back in the ground. I don't think the fern is Woodwardia orientalis. I think it is Woodwardia radicans.

I decided to move it back to a more shady location. I got
Woodwardia orientalis at a plant sale run by the San Francisco Botanical society. I took a photo for comparison. You can see it is still very small, but it does have one tiny frond. Use the mouse over to see the ID.

Here is a link that might be useful: photo of woodwardia