# Asparagus plant ferns
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asparagus-plant-ferns/554735
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [September 23, 2010, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asparagus-plant-ferns/554735 "2010-09-23T03:36:54Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2010, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asparagus-plant-ferns/554735/1 "2010-09-23T03:36:54Z")
My asparagus plants are about 4 years old. I’ve been keeping the ferns on all winter, then removing them in the spring as the new spears come up. Would it make any difference if I remove them in the fall? Do they serve any purpose during winter? And if I can remove them in the fall, does it matter whether I remove them when they’re still green or should I wait until they turn brown?
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### Author:  [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2010, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asparagus-plant-ferns/554735/2 "2010-09-23T04:19:02Z")
if you leave them up a winter then you don’t step on your plants.
doesn’t seem to make a major difference when taking down otherwise as i’ve seen or heard.
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### Author:  [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2010, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asparagus-plant-ferns/554735/3 "2010-09-23T16:11:30Z")
I have one that’s probably … lessee … \* looks up and mumbles \* … at least five or six years old now (tough little bastards!) and I just snap off the fronds once they’re brown and dried, but that’s primarily to clean it up visually. Concur with **johnpost** that they primarily serve to mark where the hell the plants are so you don’t dig them up or leave a bag of sand on them all winter.
For the record, mine’s in-ground now but lived in a pot for at least four or five years - never a soil change - and got almost no protection from winter freezes, so I wasn’t kidding when I called them tough bastards. (Yeah, yeah, I live in Texas, but we DO get winter nights down into the 20s and teens. They’re sporadic and not numerous enough to call a proper “winter” but just enough to kill off plants that otherwise would have been fine. :()