Hi Katie. Nice to meet you. I think that's the 1st question to address. If you ordered your moss on the internet it may/may not be suited to your winter conditions. Find out what kind it is and what IT's needs are for the winter. I know it's tempting to try and keep it perfect, but sometimes things need to go through their natural seasonal changes for their own good. It may not need to be protected at all. But if it does, (need to be brought indoors) I would think that keeping water in the drip pan so it can wick it up as needed and an occasional misting would suffice, in which ever window it seems to do best in (which from experience, will probably change through the winter as the sun changes). If it still seems too dry, tent it a bit. You just have to keep an eye on it, but don't over love it either, you know. It's a beautiful moss garden. The sled's a great idea for a nice roomy area to work with. Love your little wire table and cart, too, right up my alley (as they say, lol) and btw what IS that darker thing that looks sort of like a gothic-ish wire vase, kind of hard to see, it is above/around the gnome in the bottom of the picture? I don't know a lot about moss but you've prompted me to learn more. I collected some small pcs locally and over the summer it's covered the top of a little hypertufa bowl. When I googled 'moss dish garden freezing temps' some really informative websites came up. I've included the link and you can follow up the links if you wish. Good solid information and fun moss garden pics. There is also a "moss, ferns and cryptogam" forum here at gardenweb where you might find some folks who know about moss. (up at the top of the page click on "other forums" and the list of forums comes up in alphabetical order.) Welcome to gardenweb and the junk forum, hope to see you again. Donna Here is a link that might be useful: google moss dish garden freezing temps

jane, I've always thought it was done to cut back on the labor of watering.. Longer wet, less labor/$ to water them??? I'm a pretty tight packer, usually don't need to stake my spagh plants (phals and masdies mostly). I change mine every 1-2 years, but in retrospect it seems there is always quite a bit of spagh that still looks OK deep in the pot??? I mostly grow in clear pots, so the top and outside of the spagh get that green mossy look, which I don't like so I switch it. I'm also only 3-4 years back into re-establishing my collection, so I'm potting up every year or two still for a lot of mine that were purchased as seedlings/NBS plants. I also very seldom use straight spagh, for my phals in spagh I use a mix by REPOTME that is @ 80% spagh and 20% cork/bark/LECA/sponge rock. My 4 masdies in clay pots do get straight spagh with peanuts at the bottom, plus the mounties get straight spagh when they are initially mounted. All that said, I use the mixed spagh mainly for one reason, I plan on moving all phals back into a bark mix in the next few years and this mix seemed as if it would help in the transition from spagh to bark. I do better with phals in bark (winter temps are low and stays damp longer, bad combo...) , but it seems a little more difficult to move one from spagh to bark, than from bark to spagh. I've lost a few trying to switch to straight bark too quickly without some type of transitional period/media. A little off of the subject, but WTH... Bob

Why thank you Brenda! You give me too much credit! :) Hi Judy.......well......I'm not quite sure what to say. I think you should have left them in their pots. How big were the ones you started from seed? How many leaves did they have? Are those the ones you cut up? How big of pots did you have them in? Had they been in your pond all summer? How old was the bigger one? How long had you had it? I've never thinned in the fall.......but if I did, I would harvest a good sized tuber and put it at the bottom of a pot of soil, where its protected, and I would keep it wet. Is there water in your kitty litter? It needs to be wet/moist all winter. Are there any additives in your kitty litter, or is it pure clay? Some of my lotus I just bury in the yard for the winter. That's probably what might have worked best for you and all your lotus. If you couldn't tell a difference from a tuber or a runner, chances are you had mostly runners, which don't have alot of food stored in them.....so I'm not sure your's will survive. And I would never trim roots. If you're sure it won't get below freezing, I think I would just push the whole tuber/runner down to the bottom of the pot. I'm not sure about the kitty litter though. If it has additives, it could be harmful to the tuber. And definitely don't wrap it ever in plastic. It will surely rot. (Been there, done that!). Tell me again how you're handling the 3 smaller ones? Also.....next time.....leave your lotus pots in the water until mid-late November. You want them to get pretty cold. The cold will help them move to the bottom of the pot....where they like to be in cold weather. Sorry I have so many questions.......just trying to understand better. Also.....I'm a little concerned that the 60 degree weather might cause it to break dormancy. I think colder would be better.

I disagree with Ken on this one and most Extension services out there do as well. The amount of nutrients in compost and garden soil is trivial and certainly not enough to create unwanted prolific plant growth in fall. You can incorporate compost (or garden soil) into your beds at any time. Doing so in fall is actually ideal because it gives it time to improve the soil structure for next Spring's growth. The link below supports my opinion as do several others you can find online. The very small quantity of slow-release fertilizer in garden soils, which is again much less by volume (0.08-0.05-0.05) than the nutrient content of compost (typically 0.5-0.5-0.5). Even if you were to add a slow-release now, it would not cause rampant plant growth. If you think about it, nutrients are present in most soils all the time. If the mere presence of nutrients in the soil caused excessive plant growth at the wrong time, we would have plants putting on tons of new growth in fall even without new nutrients added. It is when you flood the plant with nutrients, specifically nitrogen in the form of urea (which often occurs with quick-release fertilizers) that you see the sudden onslaught of new growth in fall. I add a light amount of Hollytone (which the directions indicate) to my acid-loving evergreen shrubs in the fall because nutrients do not just produce new growth -- they (namely, phosphorus and potassium) also help the plant's roots prepare for winter, regulate plant cell water management, and improve the plant's ability to resist disease. Here is a link that might be useful: Compost Is Fine in Fall