Join us for an engaging talk with renowned fern expert and Fancy Fronds founder Judith Jones! A lifelong plant enthusiast and pioneer in fern cultivation, Judith has spent decades discovering, identifying, growing, and introducing unusual fern varieties. With stories from her fascinating journey through the world of Victorian fern culture, botanical exploration, and the creation of Fancy Fronds, Judith brings a wealth of knowledge, humor, and passion to the garden. Don’t miss this special opportunity to hear from one of the foremost names in temperate ferns!
About Judith
The daughter of a surgeon and a desert flora botanist, Judith Jones has always had a knack with plants. Her obsession with Victorian literature and furniture eventually led her to discover the wide world of Victorian fern cultivation and taxonomy, an affliction from which she has never quite recovered. She moved to Seattle to study children’s theater but soon started working with ferns while volunteering at the Seattle Arboretum. Shortly thereafter she traveled to England, a hot spot for Victorian fern cultivars, and was fortunate to find a mentor in Pteridology, Jimmy Dyce of the British Pteridological Society. Since the 1980s, Judith has named and introduced several new cultivars of ferns, including her namesake “Fancy Fronds,” a dwarf crested lady fern. Over the years she has become a leading expert on the identification of temperate fern species, constantly in correspondence with several other growers and botanists. She began a mail-order fern business in 1981 selling ferns she grew from spore exchanges or through contacts with British fern aficionados, and her company Fancy Fronds was born. What started as a short mail order list in 1981 became a full mail order fern catalog, with many editions until the last catalog printing in 2001. The Fancy Fronds website launched in 1995 and eventually replaced the printed paper catalog.
For years, Judith lived in Seattle and operated out of Torben Barfod’s nursery in Bothell, Barfod’s Hardy Ferns. They came to an arrangement where Judith provided spore and starts of new and unusual ferns, as well as her identification expertise, and Mr. Barfod provided the facility and materials to produce large crops of ferns. Together, they produced tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of ferns! Mr. Barfod sold his ferns wholesale locally, while Judith specialized knowledgeable retail and mail order sales, as well as lectures on ferns. They began constructing garden exhibits, first at the Seattle Dahlia show, and then at the first Northwest Flower and Garden Show in 1989.
In 1995, the Jones family purchased a 5-acre property in Gold Bar so that Judith could erect her own greenhouses and expand her fern collection. Her continued involvement with the Northwest Flower and Garden Show for the past 30 years has landed many unique statues, structures, and props squarely into the display gardens at the nursery, making for a whimsical setting situated along the scenic Skykomish River.
Judith is now well past retirement age but nonetheless continues her botanical rampage with unabashed abandon and is quoted as saying, “as long as I can lift a four-inch pot I will continue gardening!”
Fancy Fronds is still a small family-run business, with Judith’s youngest son and apprentice, Felix, managing the nursery in recent years to continue the tradition of sharing a world of fabulous foliage and fancy fronds.
Meets in the Pavilion. Members: $10, Non-members: $15. Advance registration is requested but walk-ins are welcome.