A recent feature in The New York Times paid homage to one of the world’s oldest lifeforms, tracing its prehistoric origins and different applications over the centuries, and also exploring its chic and comforting aesthetic.
“They prevailed as the dinosaurs fell, through extinction after extinction, obstinate and mostly unchanging,” wrote style reporter Ligaya Mishan in “What Can Ferns Teach Us About Surviving Turbulent Times?”
The story covered a few ways pop culture has embraced ferns over the years —from displaying them in glass boxes during the Victorian era to draping them in macramé hangers in 1980s home decor.
These days, she said, ferns provide calmness in an anxious era. “Increasingly florists are returning to ferns, this time not as status symbols or coddled exotics but as envoys from deep time that have steadfastly weathered it all, reminding us that this, too, shall pass,” she wrote.
Mishan consulted with floral designers in Sydney, Australia; London, England; and New York City, who weighed in with their favorite ferns (fyi: there are more than 10,500 recorded species) and how they like to style them.
To read the full article, click here.
Need inspiration? Click here to check out some ferns (and other exciting foliages) in the marketplace.
Katie Hendrick Vincent is the senior contributing editor of Floral Management magazine.
