What is a bower? This old-fashioned word has not been in use much, but I think it should come back. Bower means “a pleasant shady place under trees or climbing plants in a garden or wood.” So if you have a half-shady spot beneath some trees or an arbor, no matter how small, you can refer to it as your bower. If the shade is too dense, consider removing a few lower tree branches to allow more sunlight in. It is here, in an area of dappled light, where ferns and shade-tolerant flowers can grow together.
Ferns are a wonderful choice for a bower garden. They naturally grow in warm, shady environments, are deer resistant, and their luxuriant foliage comes back every year after the plant goes dormant in the winter. Interestingly, ferns are an ancient plant group that dominated the landscape during the age of the dinosaurs. They were here before flowers appeared, and they reproduce asexually by means of spores that mature ferns release.
Ferns have no flowers, but their finely divided fronds (this is the term for fern leaves) are the show. The appearance of the fronds vary with the type of fern you plant. For example, Japanese holly fern (Cyrtomium falcatum Rochfordianum) has stiff, glossy, dark green fronds; while ‘Burgundy Lace’ Japanese painted fern (Athyrium niponicum ‘Burgundy Lace’) has silvery fronds tinged with burgundy-purple overtones. Various ferns planted together can make quite a display. Just make sure the ferns you choose match your hardiness zone.
Shade-tolerant flowers planted alongside ferns are a favorite combination of mine. Annual flowers are like long-lasting eye candy in a ferny bower garden. They keep flowering into fall when the ferns start to fade. Perennial flowers come back every year along with the fern fronds. It can be quite exciting when the fern fiddleheads and perennials poke their heads out of the earth in spring. Try a mix-and-match approach with ferns and flowers—if something looks out of place, feel free to dig it up and plant it elsewhere. It is important that the flowers have similar water and light requirements as the ferns.