what type of soil to grow moss in

That special feeling that comes when you walk through a moss-covered forest can be recreated right in your own backyard. My guest this week, moss adept Annie Martin, aka Mossin' Annie, takes us into the magical world of moss gardening and explains the simple steps to creating your own homegrown moss garden.

Annie is the possessor of Mountain Moss Enterprises, located in the Blue Ridge Mountains in N Carolina. She provides innovative landscaping alternatives featuring environmentally-friendly mosses. Mountain Moss Enterprises advocates the joys of moss gardening, and its "Mossery" researches moss tillage techniques. The business is licensed to harvest native mosses and is certified to sell moss plants commercially.

Annie Martin, known as "Mossin' Annie," is a confirmed "mosser" and an good in moss gardening who shares her passion and creative talents as a specialized moss landscaper. She is the writer of "The Magical World of Moss Gardening."
(Photo Credit: Steven McBride)

A native of Asheville, North Carolina, Annie has been fascinated with moss since babyhood. She became a moss artist, using woods driftwood enhanced with moss in attractive arrangements. She likewise replaced grass in her yard with native mosses, which she had to larn how to grow intentionally. To expand her knowledge, she made her own observations but too learned from bryologists, the botanists who study mosses and other bryophytes.

Annie's obsession with mosses expanded into new horizons in 2008 when she founded her business organisation, turning her passion into her profession. She is committed to rescuing mosses from destruction and creating moss gardens with an intuitive alloy of artistic approaches and effective horticultural methods. She finds that not just is moss aesthetically appealing, it has environmental benefits likewise. Annie also has a book, " The Magical World of Moss Gardening ," from Timber Press.

Annie says office of what prompts us to create gardens is how it fills our spirits, and mosses definitely do that, and they are so special in terms of their botanical characteristics. If you have e'er been in a forest of moss, you know what Annie ways. Information technology'due south a unlike kind of feeling, and it's hard to put into words. Annie wants you lot to know that you can have that feeling in your own m, easily. She created her lush moss retreat over asphalt in the expressionless of winter with some make full clay.

Nearly grass backyard lovers consider moss a nuisance that they have to kill. I for one was always surprised at how vigorous moss was. Simply and then I realized that if the moss is hardy and wants to live where grass doesn't want to grow, why fight information technology? I needed to encompass the moss rather than endeavour to make something abound there that didn't want to grow. I've come up a long fashion over maybe 20 years or so since that point in my life, and I've developed a tremendous appreciation for moss.

Adding moss to the mural is too a topic I covered in an episode of my Emmy Laurels-winning public television show Growing a Greener World. Check out that episode hither to acquire some surprising facts well-nigh moss and meet how information technology can be incorporated into well-nigh whatsoever landscape, lord's day, or shade.

From the view of fairies, this moss path is magical. Sideways-growing (Hypnum) and mound-shaped colonies (Dicranum and Leucobryum) encompass the stepping stones.
(Photograph: Annie Martin)

Moss Has More than Variety Than We Realize

 "I have my moss radar on all the fourth dimension," Annie says. "I could probably spot some correct outside your house or in the cracks of a sidewalk in New York City considering mosses are truly everywhere."

Where she lives today, Pisgah Forest, is the rainiest area east of the Rockies. "Nosotros are really a temperate rainforest, but even so there will be days when it's hot or when it's dry out and that can extend into a period of time and there could actually still exist a drought." Still, moss thrives.

Lime is often thought to kill moss past making the soil more alkaline, but Annie points out that there are mosses that love alkaline soil. And some are so versatile that they will tolerate either alkaline or acid soil.

Moss tin supplant lawn and tin can likewise be applied to patios, walls and water features. There is sun moss, shade mosses, those that tin can grow upright and those that can't, those that are less tolerant of heat, and those that tin handle direct sun.

Pocket "moss" gardens are platonic for urban dwellers. In this instance, additional sideways- and upright-growing moss colonies (Thuidium and Leucobryum) have been integrated into existing Atrichum mosses.
(Photo: Annie Martin)

The Unique Characteristics of Moss

Mosses take been on Earth for 450 million years and are the oldest living land plants, forth with their cousins in the bryophyte category, liverworts and hornworts. Well-nigh land plants fall into the vascular category, which ways they have lignified tissues that conduct water and minerals, simply moss is an exception. Mosses have characteristics that make them totally unlike from other plants, Annie says.

Mosses have stems and leaves, but they do not have roots. They have what are chosen rhizoids, which anchor the plants but do not transmit water or nutrients. Instead of the flowers were are accustomed to, mosses have sporophytes, and instead of seeds, they take spores.

In contrast with vascular plant flowers, mosses accept sporophytes with capsules that contain spores instead of seeds. Glimmering jewel-tone displays of ruddy, golden, bronze can occur in all seasons. Ceratodon offers splendid sporophytes, doesn't it?
(Photo: Annie Martin)

Mosses can reproduce both through sexual reproduction, via sporophytes, and through asexual vegetative reproduction. The latter method means that moss will grow from a fragment of a plant.

Mosses are incredibly hardy. They tin can survive through cataclysmic disasters, and some species are the showtime plants to appear afterwards a fire. Their rhizoids are surprisingly effective, keeping plants in place through loftier wind, snowstorms, hailstorms, sub-freezing temperatures — yous name it. Established moss colonies don't launder away.

Tolerant of sub-freezing temperatures, mosses are good choices for all U.S. planting zones. Mosses thrive — even in the snowfall, like this Polytrichum commune.
(Photo: Annie Martin)

Moss for Erosion Control

Because moss doesn't permit go once it is attached to a surface, information technology is a useful tool for reducing erosion. Annie says 1 of the best species for erosion control Polytrichum commune. Information technology is an upright grower with exceptionally tall stems of a human foot tall. Its rhizoids abound straight down, nigh as deep as the moss growing aboveground is tall.

Mosses are also effective at capturing stormwater runoff. The leaves of moss trap water and absorb information technology in a way that vascular plants can't keep upward with.

Moss is effective for erosion control on a gradient.
(Photo: Annie Martin)

Moss Is Cocky-Sufficient

Moss gets its nutrients and moisture from the rain and air. Y'all'll never demand to fertilize it. And moss isn't reliant on whatever sort of chemical supplements or interventions whatsoever. Whether it's pesticides, herbicides or fungicides — they don't demand whatever -icides at all. And moss tastes bad to deer, which is welcome news to gardeners who face deer pressure. Moss is unbothered by insect pests too, while providing habitat to benign insects.

Once a moss garden is established, it doesn't need fertilizer, fungicides or pesticides.
(Photograph: Annie Martin)

Moss for Carbon Sequestration

Moss is an air cleaner: Sphagnum peatlands sequester more carbon than all of the world's rain forests, Annie says. Sphagnum is a genus that includes more than 200 species of moss, and Sphagnum mosses cover between 2 and 3% of the world's landmass.  1-third of the world'due south soil carbon is sequestered in moss.

As an iconic, historical design, this expansive labyrinth features Thuidium and Hypnum – both sideways-growing moss species.
(Photo Credit: Annie Martin)

How to Get-go a Moss Garden

Anie recommends starting with a pocket-size focal feature rather than trying to cover 1,000 square feet off the bat. And a large project will go much more easily if the land has existing mosses to utilize.

The commencement footstep is to articulate the surface area of grass and weeds and remove droppings such every bit leaves and acorns. Side by side, rather than loosening the soil, pack it down. Walk right over information technology. Then with a three-pronged digger , simply slightly incise the surface. (Only Polytrichum, with its deep rhizoids, will require you to dig a hole to plant information technology.)

You lot can plant just tiny $.25 of moss, and they will spread. For quicker results, Annie uses "moss mats." These are vi-by-half-dozen sheets of geotextile fabric covered in moss. The fabric can go right over weeds or grasses that are difficult to remove, or the moss tin exist removed from the sheets and direct practical to soil.

Acrocarpous-type moss, which stands in upright mounds, will not spread horizontally, though its spore dispersal via wind and critter activity will help the moss achieve new areas of your garden. For expansive growth horizontally, you need pleurocarpous moss.

Instead of attempting a moss backyard, showtime pocket-size with a moss "tree skirt." Under the awning of a massive oak tree where nothing else volition grow, mosses add together that special ambiance with a verdant bear on. Creatively combine mound colonies with sideways carpet species using Dicranum, Hypnum, Leucobryum and Thuidium.
(Photograph: Annie Martin)

For immediate gratification, plant moss densely. Site upright colonies right side by side to each other, and use pleurocarpous mosses with interweaved edges, creating a patchwork. This will cover the entire area with no waiting for the moss to grow in. The next of import step is to water the moss thoroughly with a hose, under soggy, Annie says. She does not recommend wetting moss before installation, which tin can create more than headaches than anything else. Adjacent, walk over the moss, especially on the seams where plants meet.

For slower results but at less cost and with less work involved, use mitt-size pieces of moss, which Annie calls "cookies." The individual pieces can lay apartment on the ground, just if on a hillside or a windy location, the pieces should exist pinned into the ground with a twig. In between the cookies, spread fragments of moss that has been shredded apart. In one case the fragments, or "frags," are downwardly, water them in and walk over them.

Reproducing through frags occurs in nature besides, Annie points out: Leucobryum moss, which is shaped in a mound and called "pincushion moss" reproduces asexually when leafage tips flake off.

Because mosses offering a multifariousness of textures and shades of green, innovative landscape designs are possible. Leucobryum (light greenish) and Climacium (medium greenish) are encompassed by Thuidium (green/golden overtones).
(Photo: Annie Martin)

Annie does not recommend the blender or "milkshake" method. She calls this one of the biggest internet moss myths at that place is. It simply doesn't piece of work well. Moss that'due south been through a blender will probably wash abroad, she warns.

You can employ frags exclusively instead of solid colonies, but Annie says the trouble with a 100 percent frag method is they are liable to blow or wash away.

If you have existing colonies, you lot tin help them spread past raking them. The same final steps employ: water the frags and walk on them.

"Every planting method requires this watering and walking, and that's what will assist the rhizoids to attach," Annie says.

Help newly planted moss thrive with supplemental watering several times per day. Each watering session can be quick, but the frequency is necessary because moss dries out chop-chop. Part of the reason mosses live together in colonies is that it helps retain wet. In one case plants are established, they volition probably survive with no supplemental watering, but they may appear stressed from time to time.

Weeding is another concern. Keep on top of it to give the moss the opportunity to colonize. The proficient news is, while hand weeding, any moss fragments that come up can be reused.

Instead of brown mulch (before), sideways-growing mosses environs existing stepping stones with accents of upright colonies (after). The carpet-similar "fern" mosses are Hypnum and Thuidium; the mound colonies are Dicranum and Leucobryum.
(Photo: Annie Martin)

Ethical Standards

"I practice upstanding standards and responsible land stewardship and all of the rescues and harvesting of mosses that I do," Annie says.

The harvested moss is brought back to the Mossery to exist preened, cleaned and cultivated before it is sold to the public.

She does not encourage going into a park or wood to take moss, and she notes that there has been a moratorium on moss harvesting in national forests for more than a decade. Good places to rescue moss include neighbors' backdrop, abandoned sites or the edge of a parking lot, according to Annie.

Annie harvests moss sustainably and is licensed to do so. You can harvest moss from the edge of a parking lot or a neighbor's belongings.
(Photograph: Annie Martin)

I hope you feel that you have a better understanding of moss gardening later listings to my conversation with Annie Martin. If you haven't listened notwithstanding, you can exercise so now by clicking the Play push on the greenish bar virtually the top of this mail.

Practice y'all practice moss gardening, intentionally or otherwise? Let u.s.a. know in the comments below.

Links & Resources

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Episode 072: Creating an Eco-friendly Garden & Landscape: vii Key Tenets

Episode 073: How to Create a Resilient Garden: 10 Cardinal Principles

joegardenerTV YouTube: How to Create a Moss Garden

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joegardener Online Gardening Academy Perfect Soil Recipe Master Class : Larn how to create the perfect soil environment for thriving plants.

joegardener Online Gardening University Beginning Gardener Fundamentals : Essential principles to know to create a thriving garden.

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GGW Episode 312: Moss Gardens

MountainMoss.com

Annie Martin on Instagram

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Mountain Moss Facebook folio

Mountain Moss Facebook group: Get Greenish With Moss!

" The Magical Globe of Moss Gardening " by Annie Martin

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