Summer Blakeley: VIDEO: How to Plant Ferns for Your Spring Porch🌿 with Wyse Guide

Every spring, the question isn’t whether to put out ferns — it’s when and how. Kaleb Wyse of Wyse Guide walks through his exact process for potting up Kimberly Queen ferns for his front porch — from choosing the right variety to getting them settled and ready to hang. His go-to foundation: Espoma Organic All-Purpose Potting mix and Espoma Organic Bio-tone Starter Plus — the same trusted combination he reaches for season after season.

Here are 6 top tips and takeaways from Kaleb’s spring fern planting:

1. Pot Early — But Stay Flexible

Kaleb pots his ferns before he’s ready to hang them, giving them a couple of weeks to root in first. Since the baskets are easy to move, he can bring them close to the house or inside if a cold night threatens. His reminder: don’t let a warm March or April fool you — one cold snap can undo everything, and he doesn’t commit his ferns to the elements until he’s confident the season has truly arrived.

2. Match Your Fern to Your Porch

Kaleb grew up watching his mom grow beautiful Boston ferns on a shady north-facing porch — but his own farmhouse faces south, meaning full sun, extreme summer heat, and strong winds all season. Kimberly Queen ferns were the answer. More upright than a Boston fern, they’re tough enough to handle full southern exposure and still fill out beautifully as the summer goes on. Know your exposure and choose accordingly.

3. Give Your Ferns a Strong Start

For ferns — and really anything he pots outside — Kaleb uses All-Purpose Potting Mix. It’s nutrient-rich, organic, and made with real perlite for drainage — not the plastic or Styrofoam pellets found in lower-quality soils. He then adds Bio-tone Starter Plus before the fern goes in: a slow-release organic blend that enriches the soil and feeds the plant steadily all season long without over-fertilizing.

4. Go Big on Basket and Plant Size

Kaleb pots his ferns directly into large wire hanging baskets with coco liners — the same baskets they’ll eventually hang from once the weather cooperates. He goes with 17-inch baskets and buys the biggest ferns he can find, around 2-gallon size, because he wants his front porch to have presence from day one. Starting with small plants means waiting until August for them to look full, and that’s just not worth it. He leaves about four inches of space around the perimeter of each fern so it has plenty of room to grow into throughout the season — and once the weather settles and the risk of cold nights has passed, the hooks go on and up they go.

5. Prep the Root Ball Before Planting

Before dropping the fern in, Kaleb takes a garden knife and cuts the root ball in half — removing the excess empty soil at the bottom and freeing up the roots. He also makes a few relief cuts around the sides to encourage roots to branch outward into the fresh potting mix rather than continuing to circle. The fern gets set an inch or two below the rim of the basket so water soaks in rather than running right off.

6. Water In Right Away — Then Top Off

After planting, Kaleb waters each basket immediately. Once the soil gets wet it settles and condenses, so the level drops — and topping it off with a little more potting mix right then and there saves an extra step later. From there, the baskets go to a protected spot on the porch to root in, hooks off, until the season is truly ready for them.

You Can Do It!

The secret to full, lush porch ferns all season long starts with what you put in the pot. Grab All-Purpose Potting Mix and Bio-tone Starter Plus and follow Kaleb’s lead. And if you want to enjoy it all with a little background music while you sip your morning coffee on the porch — Kaleb’s got you covered on that front too.