Best Outdoor Fern Plants of 2025

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Outdoor fern plants are a beautiful and versatile addition to any garden or outdoor space. These plants are known for their lush green foliage and delicate fronds, which add texture and interest to any landscape. Ferns are also low maintenance and easy to care for, making them a popular choice for gardeners of all skill levels. Whether you're looking to create a lush, tropical oasis or simply add a touch of green to your outdoor space, outdoor fern plants are an excellent choice.
At a Glance: Our Top Picks
Top 10 Outdoor Fern Plants
4 x Ready to Plant Outdoor Fern Plants
The Carbeth Plants Fern Mix is an excellent choice for adding greenery to shady areas of your garden. With a variety of ferns that change throughout the year, you can enjoy the best-looking plants available at the time of purchase. These ferns thrive in shaded spots, making them ideal for planting under trees. Moreover, they require minimal maintenance; simply give them a drink during dry spells, allowing you to enjoy a beautiful garden without the hassle of constant care.
GardenersDream 5 Mixed Outdoor Fern Plants
The GardenersDream Fern Plants offer a delightful collection of five mixed fern varieties, perfect for adding diverse textures and shades of green to your garden. With lush foliage throughout the year, these plants ensure your garden remains vibrant and interesting regardless of the season. Being nursery grown, they are well-spread and ready for immediate planting, giving you the convenience of mature plants without the wait. This easy-to-care-for option is ideal for shaded areas, allowing you to transform less sunny spots into beautiful green spaces.
Pack of 3 Hardy Shield Fern Plants
The Hardy Shield Ferns are a delightful addition to any outdoor space. These evergreen ferns boast dark green leaves, bringing a lush look to your garden. Their compact and tidy habit makes them perfect for smaller areas or as part of a larger planting scheme. You can easily plant them in full or partial shade, providing flexibility in your garden design. With a height and spread of approximately 30cm, they are ideal for creating a low-maintenance green environment.
Carbeth Plants Outdoor Fern Mix - 10 Established Plants
The Carbeth Outdoor Fern Mix consists of 10 established plants in 9 cm pots, allowing you to plant them directly into your garden with ease. This random mix of ferns ensures you receive a variety that looks best at the time of purchase, adding visual interest to your outdoor space. These ferns thrive in shady areas, making them perfect for those darker spots in your garden. Once planted, they require minimal maintenance, needing just a drink during long dry spells, making them a convenient choice for any gardener.
Fern Plant Mix - 6 Large Plants
The Carbeth Plants Fern Pack offers a delightful selection of six large ferns, each measuring 20 to 25 cm in height. These plants are ready to be planted directly into your garden, featuring healthy root balls that ensure robust growth. Ideal for shady areas, they thrive under trees, creating lush greenery in spots where other plants may struggle. Plus, they require minimal maintenance once established, needing just a drink during dry spells, making them perfect for busy gardeners.
Outdoor Fern Mix with 10 Plants
The Carbeth Fern Mix includes ten strong plants, each in 9cm pots, making them ready to be planted directly in your garden. These ferns thrive in shady areas, perfect for spots under trees where other plants may struggle. You will appreciate the variety, as the selection changes with the seasons, ensuring you receive the best-looking plants at the time of purchase. Once established, these ferns require minimal maintenance, needing just a drink during dry periods, which makes them an excellent choice for busy gardeners.
GardenersDream Mixed Outdoor Fern Collection
The GardenersDream Fern Plants collection features three distinct fern varieties that thrive all year round, adding vibrant shades of green to your garden. Each plant is carefully grown to ensure optimal health, allowing you to enjoy their lush foliage immediately. With a height of 20–30 cm, these hardy perennials are perfect for easy planting. They provide consistent beauty throughout the seasons, ensuring your outdoor space remains inviting and colourful, regardless of the time of year.
YouGarden Jurassic Gold Alpine Wood Fern
The YouGarden Jurassic Gold Fern is an easy-to-grow garden fern, ideal for both novice gardeners and those with limited time. Its stunning rose-gold fronds emerge in spring, bringing vibrant colour to your garden. You can use it in pots, mixed planters, or garden borders, making it versatile for various garden spaces. This hardy plant thrives in cool, shaded spots, and its evolving seasonal colour transforms from rose-gold to gold and green, adding visual interest as it matures.
3 x Fern Collection - Hardy Varieties
This stunning Carbeth Plants Fern Collection features hardy varieties that thrive year after year. You will appreciate the selection of ferns, as it changes with the seasons, ensuring you have the best options available. These perennial plants are easy to grow, making them perfect for both novice and experienced gardeners. Additionally, their evergreen nature means they will provide lush greenery even in the cooler months, enhancing your garden with vibrancy. Ideal for cool, shady spots, this collection can be displayed in mixed planters or as a charming small fernery.
Asplenium Scolopendrium Hart's Tongue Fern Plant
The Carbeth Outdoor Fern Plant is an ideal choice for shaded areas in your garden. This evergreen hart's tongue fern thrives in low-light conditions, making it perfect for planting beneath trees or near rocks. Once established, it requires minimal care, needing only annual mulching and a bit of tidying in spring. With a maximum height and spread of 60cm, it adds a beautiful touch to patio pots and garden borders without overwhelming your space.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. What ferns are good for outside?
Types of wood ferns ideal for outdoor growing include the autumn fern (Dryopteris erythrosora), crested buckler-fern (Dryopteris cristata), leatherleaf fern (Rumohra adiantiformis), and marginal wood fern (Dryopteris marginalis).
2. Can ferns live outside all year?
Ferns are tropical plants and will not tolerate cold outdoor temperatures. To maintain your fern's evergreen color, you can try to overwinter your fern by cutting it back in the fall and placing it in a light-filled area indoors. Location, humidity, and water are essential for an attempt at overwintering.
3. What is the easiest fern to grow outdoors?
Today, Boston fern is still a top pick for indoor and outdoor settings. But, because Boston fern can grow 3 feet tall and 3 feet wide, it are often a better choice for outdoor situations.
4. Do ferns make good outdoor plants?
Ferns make an excellent addition to any shady garden. Use them as specimen plants or for background plantings, or interplant them with other shade loving plants such as hostas, astilbes, dicentras and caladiums. If your yard is shady, it can be challenging to maintain a good-looking lawn.
During our outdoor fern plant research, we found 40 outdoor fern plant products and shortlisted 10 quality products. We collected and analyzed 7,186 customer reviews through our big data system to write the outdoor fern plants list. We found that most customers choose outdoor fern plants with an average price of £20.55.
The outdoor fern plants are available for purchase. We have researched hundreds of brands and picked the top brands of outdoor fern plants, including Carbeth Plants, GardenersDream, GROWTANICAL, YouGarden. The seller of top 1 product has received honest feedback from 4,604 consumers with an average rating of 4.3.

Toby Butcher is a Horticulturist, and he earned his title as a Master Gardener in 2016. Toby has acquired a 25-year experience as a home gardener planting, designing, grooming vegetables and flowers. He is the leader of a plant group in Durham. Toby owns a blog where he publishes articles on growing and growing your flowers at home, in a vase, or in a garden.