I love my dixie wood ferns too... Also love the many fingered male ferns. I bought 6 this year when we got them in at the nursery in the bare root sale.
I have a robust male fern and its never done anything good for me either. Im really kind of disappointed in it.

D. goldiana, Goldie's fern is one of my fvorite and its native to boot, as is bootii.

My Robust Male Fern is, well, robust; has yielded several divisions and, er, thrust itself through a tangle of flowering quince for several years to get to 4 feet tall, which, yes, it did. Was growing dry, in poor soil, root competition from the quince, and mostly sun.

I also love: D. clintoniana, crassirhizoma, wallichiana, and - these four are the ones I like THE best - dilatata Recurved Form, dilatata Jimmy Dyce, sieboldii, and tokyoensis.

If I were going to plant Dryopteris (they wouldn't like it out here), I'd plant Dryopteris marginalis.

Patrick Alexander

Dryopteris erythrosora. New growth is a beautiful pinky-bronze, the old growth lasts all winter in my area (and we had a long, hard winter this year, with a lot of frost), eventually turning golden-brown in spring. I need to cut it back now to give the new fronds a chance to grow, but it's still looking good.