I, uh, what kind of ferns?

Give it two weeks at the most, but water early morning every day for those 14 days and not too heavily. Their roots will dive down far into the ground to find water after that.

If you bought Autumn Ferns then be prepared to find them elsewhere in your yard. They are like ivy and boxwood which send out shooters underground and then sprout up elsewhere.

planted: evergreen wood fern
spinulose wood fern
maindenhair fern
cinnamon fern
interrupted fern

so far one of the evergreen ferms has popped up and that's it. Planted these couple weeks ago.

Autumn fern is not a runner, but aside from that, the ferns may take a while to emerge. How did you buy them? If they were too dry they might have died. Either way, don't overwater now; just keep the soil moist.

KarinL

shipped as dormant rhizomes from directgardening mail order catalogue
soil should have been perfect for growth per instructions of their preferences. but cold snap may have hurt some of them. might have to add these to my list of items they need to send me new samples of :P