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Growing moss
- Thread starter eplants02
- Start date
I have had success. Here's a very easy but often overlooked method of growing moss.
Take one pint of room temperature buttermilk and one pint of room temperature water. Now go out and find moss that is growing in your local area. Scrape it off just the way you would envision people who work with sod. Add the nice moss to the other ingredients and place in a blender on low until it is mixed.
Get yourself a paint brush and paint it on to surfaces where you want it to grow. Best to select appropriate areas that are nice and shaded and moist or you won't have a chance at growing your moss. You can paint rocks, old logs, and just about anything.
This method of growing moss works quite well. I painted a footpath through a woodland area and I have nice moss everywhere that looks as if Ma Nature put it there.
You will have the best success growing moss that you harvest locally so don't waste money buying spores mail order.
Have fun!
Take one pint of room temperature buttermilk and one pint of room temperature water. Now go out and find moss that is growing in your local area. Scrape it off just the way you would envision people who work with sod. Add the nice moss to the other ingredients and place in a blender on low until it is mixed.
Get yourself a paint brush and paint it on to surfaces where you want it to grow. Best to select appropriate areas that are nice and shaded and moist or you won't have a chance at growing your moss. You can paint rocks, old logs, and just about anything.
This method of growing moss works quite well. I painted a footpath through a woodland area and I have nice moss everywhere that looks as if Ma Nature put it there.
You will have the best success growing moss that you harvest locally so don't waste money buying spores mail order.
Have fun!
superimposedhope
Somewhat Unstable
Sure, why not. At some point in time the "rolling stone" has to come to rest and hopefully it does so in a shady and moist location. Think of all those nice blotchy spores the rolling stone would leave on its way to a resting point.
Hmmm, coral rocks...
Check out this site- http://www.mossacres.com/
You will be too far south to go with Dicranum if you are in Florida but Rock Cap Moss would be my choice for my area for that type of an application. I am in the Midwest. Dicranum is a North American native moss.
Are you familiar with Kyoto Moss?
http://www.bonsaiboy.com/catalog/product214.html
This is the very same moss you find in all those beautiful gardens in and around Kyoto Japan. The last time we were there was a few years ago and I only purchased my first digital camera two years ago or I would post photos for you. Sorry. I did try to sneak out some spores but they were taken away from me because of a pack of "sniffin beagles" that descended upon my luggage. They sniffed it out right through double ziplocks. Bummer.
Hmmm, coral rocks...
Check out this site- http://www.mossacres.com/
You will be too far south to go with Dicranum if you are in Florida but Rock Cap Moss would be my choice for my area for that type of an application. I am in the Midwest. Dicranum is a North American native moss.
Are you familiar with Kyoto Moss?
http://www.bonsaiboy.com/catalog/product214.html
This is the very same moss you find in all those beautiful gardens in and around Kyoto Japan. The last time we were there was a few years ago and I only purchased my first digital camera two years ago or I would post photos for you. Sorry. I did try to sneak out some spores but they were taken away from me because of a pack of "sniffin beagles" that descended upon my luggage. They sniffed it out right through double ziplocks. Bummer.
I didn't think of the idea. It's been in use for a while. I borrowed the idea after sitting on my tush planting purchased plugs (say that three times fast) of non indigenous moss spores that never spread anywhere. I was not happy and was whining about how my plugs weren't spreading and somebody told me about having read about this method. It sounded reasonable to me since moss is nothing but oodles of spores so I bought some buttermilk and painted away with glee. Nothing much happened right away but by fall I had moss everywhere.
Say, we could experiment on you Joe and see if the method works on people. Are you familiar with the GreenMan from the Renaissance/Medieval Ages? We could call you MossMan. Just teasing with you a little!
http://www.dl.ket.org/humanities/connections/class/medren/greenman.htm
Back to reality, if you want to try this on a broken ceramic pot that is going to go into a terrarium with critters; soak the pot for a day in water and then drain the water and add fresh and soak it another day. Then paint it up but let it grow somewhere else and not in that terrarium. The buttermilk will do its thing and when you feel relatively confident there is little or no trace of the buttermilk left, plop your hidey hole spot in your terrarium. All those wonderful spores should colonize rather nicely.
Say, we could experiment on you Joe and see if the method works on people. Are you familiar with the GreenMan from the Renaissance/Medieval Ages? We could call you MossMan. Just teasing with you a little!
http://www.dl.ket.org/humanities/connections/class/medren/greenman.htm
Back to reality, if you want to try this on a broken ceramic pot that is going to go into a terrarium with critters; soak the pot for a day in water and then drain the water and add fresh and soak it another day. Then paint it up but let it grow somewhere else and not in that terrarium. The buttermilk will do its thing and when you feel relatively confident there is little or no trace of the buttermilk left, plop your hidey hole spot in your terrarium. All those wonderful spores should colonize rather nicely.
Moss lover here! In fact it was the acres of moss-draped ground, ledges and rotting logs that that had much to with me immediately falling in love with, and accepting a job at the botanical gardens where I now work.
The definitive book for anyone interested in growing moss is Moss Gardening: Including Lichens, Liverworts, and Other Miniatures by George Schenk… http://www.amazon.com/exec....s=books
Laura mentioned the recipe for growing moss and I've seen all kinds of variations on this theme...some using beer. Even Martha had a recipe in one of her issues of Living!
Someone mentioned Moss Acres. All Benner, the proprietor, is very nice. A couple years ago when I was in grad school at Cornell and doing a moss project, he sent me free samples of the various taxa he sells. He also sells the black mesh deer fencing that we have found effective at our Botanical Gardens.
Patrick Chasse, the garden designer was preparing to release a book on moss until he was recently hired as Curator of Gardens at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, which caused him to put the book on hold.
At our Botanical Gardens we have acres of sphagnum moss growing. I hope I am correct in understanding that live sphagnum is appropriate to use whenever cultural information says use LFS. Someone please correct me if this is not right.
Happy moss growing!
John
The definitive book for anyone interested in growing moss is Moss Gardening: Including Lichens, Liverworts, and Other Miniatures by George Schenk… http://www.amazon.com/exec....s=books
Laura mentioned the recipe for growing moss and I've seen all kinds of variations on this theme...some using beer. Even Martha had a recipe in one of her issues of Living!
Someone mentioned Moss Acres. All Benner, the proprietor, is very nice. A couple years ago when I was in grad school at Cornell and doing a moss project, he sent me free samples of the various taxa he sells. He also sells the black mesh deer fencing that we have found effective at our Botanical Gardens.
Patrick Chasse, the garden designer was preparing to release a book on moss until he was recently hired as Curator of Gardens at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, which caused him to put the book on hold.
At our Botanical Gardens we have acres of sphagnum moss growing. I hope I am correct in understanding that live sphagnum is appropriate to use whenever cultural information says use LFS. Someone please correct me if this is not right.
Happy moss growing!
John
Hello guys!
Laura, how much time will take this paint of moss to produce moss? I mean, how much time will I need to wait from the time I spread the paint and the time that I will start to see moss appearing?
This is a wonderful recipe for all of us whom have been trying to grow moss and have not had success. Among many plants, I also cultivate Bonsai, and every time I want moss as a groundcover I have to go to the other corner of the Island (3 hours in car) to harvest moss in the mountains. Now this recipe can save me time and journeys, so I will give it a try.
See you,
Jorge Joel…
Emilia’s Garden
Laura, how much time will take this paint of moss to produce moss? I mean, how much time will I need to wait from the time I spread the paint and the time that I will start to see moss appearing?
This is a wonderful recipe for all of us whom have been trying to grow moss and have not had success. Among many plants, I also cultivate Bonsai, and every time I want moss as a groundcover I have to go to the other corner of the Island (3 hours in car) to harvest moss in the mountains. Now this recipe can save me time and journeys, so I will give it a try.
See you,
Jorge Joel…
Emilia’s Garden
hahaha strangely, the scientifically verified answer is: sort of.[b said:
really random factoid... they actually did an experiment on this on the Discovery Channel show MythBusters a few weeks ago. i believe they used the buttermilk-blender combination to grow moss in big spinning drums with granite cylinders rolling around in them for a few months (they used non-spinning cylinders as well, for you scientific process sticklers). the "rolling" stones didn't GROW moss, but they did GATHER moss in a separate experiment where they just rolled the stones down a mossy hill.
so according to the show, Laura's process does work... as long as it's not on a rolling stone!
(yes, i am a completely incurable nerd.)
