AKRON, Ohio — Dennis Kuntz's garden is about as close to foolproof as you can get.
Kuntz grows hardy ferns on his family's property in Green, Ohio. They require little care, other than a little weeding and some water when it gets dry. They don't need to be fertilized. For the most part, pests don't bother them, and even deer and rabbits leave them alone.
"They're one of the most forgiving plants," Kuntz said. Yet they put on a long-lasting display that captivates him and beautifies his backyard.
Kuntz became fascinated with ferns as a teenager, when he noticed the carpet of New York ferns growing in the wooded area behind his family's home. He thought they were beautiful, so he dug some up and moved them closer to the house. "Back then I didn't know better," he said with a laugh.
That started him on a quest to learn more. He began reading about ferns and buying other kinds that are hardy in our area. Finding new ferns became an obsession.
He even rescued a number of Christmas ferns that would have been destroyed by construction of a nearby housing development.
Now he's up to about 120 kinds of ferns. Most grow in two beds, one just behind the house he shares with his parents, and the other farther back on the property, at the edge of the woods.
The ferns display a surprising array of frond shapes — some delicate and lacy, some tongue-shaped, some edged in scallops. Some of his ferns grow in clumps just a few inches wide; others can stretch 6 feet tall.
Kuntz said 20 or 30 types of ferns grow naturally in Northeast Ohio. Many of his, however, are native to other areas.
Altogether, the world has around 12,000 species of ferns, said Michelle Bundy, curator of the Hardy Fern Foundation, an international group of fern enthusiasts. Most ferns live in tropical forests, although some species are found in deserts or very cold areas.
They're an ancient and extremely hardy plant form that existed long before trees or shrubs, Bundy said. In fact, she said ferns dominated the Earth's plant life 340 million years ago.
Credit their survival to their means of reproduction, she said.
Ferns reproduce not from seeds, but from spores. Spores are carried from the plant to the ground in many ways, including wind, water, birds and other animals.
When a spore lands in a spot it likes, it produces a tiny, heart-shaped growth. That growth, called a prothalus, has a female end that produces eggs and a male end that produces sperm.
A sperm swims through water in the environment to the female end of a prothalus — either the prothalus that produced it or another one. There it may fertilize an egg, which eventually will grow into a fern.
One thing that fascinates Kuntz is the way ferns grow, each frond unfurling from a tight spiral called a fiddlehead. People sometimes cook and eat those emerging fronds, but "I don't recommend it," said Kuntz, who once tried the fiddleheads from an ostrich fern. "They tasted terrible."
His ferns include common types such as the lady fern, whose feathery fronds made it a favorite houseplant in the Victorian era, and the bracken fern, a tough-as-nails plant with triangular fronds that is often considered a weed.
They also include colorful examples such as the Japanese painted fern, with its silvery leaves and wine-colored veins and stems; the Himalayan maidenhair fern, which starts out rosy pink and turns to green tipped with copper as the spring progresses; and the cinnamon fern, with cinnamon-colored spores that come up on their own fronds.
Some of his ferns are particularly prized, like the crested wood fern that Kuntz spent two years tracking down. A few are temperamental: For example, the rattlesnake ferns he transplanted died, but one came up on its own in a different part of the yard. A spore had made its way to that bed, where the soil apparently contains a fungus the rattlesnake fern requires.
Some of his ferns are susceptible to slugs, and sometimes they're heaved from the soil by the freeze-thaw cycle. A few start to look ragged late in the summer.
But other than that, the plants are fairly resistant to pests and other problems, he said. Some stay green throughout the growing season; others keep their color right on through winter.
Most of Kuntz's ferns come from mail-order sources, since most nurseries carry only one or two types, he said. He's tried growing ferns from spores once or twice, he said, but "I've ended up with nothing but a moldy mess."
Kuntz grows his ferns just for his own enjoyment, not as a business. But he doesn't rule out the possibility of propagating ferns for sale.
"Maybe someday," he said.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.