Dixie wood fern is the big one: a vigorous hybrid of two native wood ferns that sends up stiff, upright fronds three to four feet tall, more in a spot it likes. It carries enough bulk to read as a shade shrub rather than a groundcover.

Shade to part shade, in soil with some organic matter worked through it. It clumps rather than runs, so it stays where you put it, and through a mild Birmingham winter the fronds often stand well into the cold. Shear last year's growth off before the new fiddleheads push up.