All gardeners are brought to the act of gardening by a moment of crystalline clarification; a childhood moment at lake’s edge where the moonlight bounces off of the water; a hike through the woods when a sudden shaft of sunlight illuminates the soft lime green of a moss bed; a field trip to the botanical garden where exotics make you heady with their fragrance, and the colors and textures surrounding you make you feel as if you’re in the center of an Impressionist painting.
A gardener has the ability to recreate these moments; we have only to plant a silvery night garden, keep a Phalaenopsis orchid on our desk at work, and fill every available nook and cranny with annuals and perennials that will color our world. Even those new to gardening can have that woodland paradise in their own back yard by planting a moss garden. In fact, since moss thrives in shade, it’s the perfect substitute for a lawn that you’ve had difficulty in keeping healthy due to lack of light! Large shade trees such as maple, oak, or ash often are challenges to the quest for a uniformly green lawn. Here moss is the ideal replacement for turf grass.
If you are a sufferer of grass allergies, get rid of the watery eyes, itchy throat and sneezing by planting pollen-free moss. Our gardens should be our sanctuaries, our at-home vacation spots that give us assuagement from our daily stresses. The color green has been proven to reduce stress, and moss provides the widest range of vibrant, revitalizing greens in Nature. As the Japanese have known for centuries, moss gardens add serenity and a timeless quality to your garden that will result in eliciting a calm, contemplative state of mind.
An increasingly desirable, low-maintenance alternative to grass lawns, moss is also perfect for rock gardens, water gardens, ponds, fern gardens, or as an unusual ground cover in shady areas. With over 15,000 species of moss growing on Earth, these easy-to-grow plants are bryophytes, non-vascular plants that do not produce flowers or seeds, and are easily planted on rocks or bare soil. With rhizoids rather than roots, they don’t ask for much when you are choosing where to plant, and in return provide erosion control and rapid reproduction. Moss is not affected by temperatures, other than to slow its growth during the hottest and driest months of the year. In fact, moss can dry out and remain dormant until the next rain, seldom dying completely. It is because of this that sphagnum moss covers 1% of the Earth’s surface!
Here we will examine four mosses, each of which will thrive in a different venue.
- Fern moss (Thuidium) is a medium green moss that is perfect for heavy foot traffic. Low-growing, it will tolerate some dappled sunlight, but loves the shade. Perfect for beneath vined pergolas.
- Cushion moss (Leucobryum) is the choice for your planting beds, with its light green color that sports a silver-white cast. It grows well in sandy soil, and will tolerate some partial sun, but does not take well to being trod upon.
- Haircap moss (Polytrichum) prefers medium shade and well-drained soil. It anchors with fibers that function somewhat similarly to roots, and is an upright grower with a bright green color.
- For your rock garden and as an accent to your water features, the moss that you remember from your woodland walks is the rock cap moss (Dicranum). Medium to dark green, it needs full shade, and grows on rocks and boulders.
- If you are planting your moss in an area where there will occasionally be patches of full sun, use the Bryum moss, the moss most commonly found on walls or in sidewalk cracks, or Grimmia moss, another more sun-tolerant variety. A good guide is to check out your own property, find where the moss is growing, and that will tell you where conditions are optimal.
You can buy moss, but there are less expensive ways of accruing it: transplant from your own property, from public property such as sidewalk cracks, or check with your neighbors to see if they might be willing to part with some of their moss. Dig it up with a flat shovel, ensuring at least an inch of soil beneath the moss mat. If removing it from rocks, use a putty knife. To this gardener, the most amusing way to plant your moss garden is to take a clump of moss, crumble it into your blender, add 2 cups of buttermilk and 2 cups of water, and blend at the lowest speed until thoroughly mixed and the consistency of a thin milk shake, adding a little water if necessary. Paint this mixture onto rocks, or simply pour it on the ground where you’d like your moss to grow!
As with any planting, first prepare the site. Eliminate all grass before planting your moss-glyphosate-containing herbicides will kill the grass. Clear all debris such as twigs and leaves, raking clear the soil with an iron rake; then tamp the soil down, as moss objects to loose soil. Simply lay down the moss, tamping firmly once again, water well for 2 to 3 weeks, and avoid heavy foot traffic as it establishes. During hot dry seasons, a gentle misting will be your gift to your moss.
It may take a couple of seasons for a moss lawn to completely establish, or for your favorite boulders in your rock garden to be carpeted in green moss, but won’t it have been well worth it?