DIGGING UP A LARGE FERN

Last year a beautiful fern of mine, Dryopteris filix-mas Euxinensis, was so large that it looked ridiculous where it was. It is an upright type of fern, grew to several feet high, and hid the wonderful arching ferns behind it. Sad as it is, it has to go. So, yesterday I tried to dig it up. Who would have thought that a fern could have roots like an oak tree! Perhaps that's using hyperbole, but I dug and dug and couldn't get it out. I tried chopping at it - it was hard as rock - and I tried levering it out of the ground and thought the spade and fork handles were going to snap. It's still there. Half in half out. There it will have to stay for a while as, today, as I stepped through the kitchen door into the garden, my back went into a protest—so perhaps another day. I may keep a piece of it so that it can thrive elsewhere.