You're in luck! I just went to a symposium on moss gardening! You sound like you are doing many things right. The moss ideally likes at least 5.5 alkaline soil. The most important thing is to keep it clear of leaves and other debris, because that will kill the moss. You can pull up grass and weeds or use Round-up or other weed killer, if you do that kind of thing. To transplant, use a an old kitchen spatchula to remove sheets of moss. Press it down firmly and water. The buttermilk treatment works better when you are aging cement pots. Please stay in touch. I am just beginning my garden, too. I have more notes and a book that I will send later if you want.

What a great opportunity! I'd suggest that you use some netting at first to prevent squirrel damage - they seem to like newly planted moss in my experience. NOW is the best time to transplant/spray moss when you have many wet days to settle the moss, but I don't think that will matter if you install a misting system. I have had a lot of success with just plain rain water (forget the buttermilk, in my opinion as it contains a lot of calcium) to mix moss. Use the local mosses as much as possible - you already know they will grow in your area. Lastly weeding by hand is daunting but really works best, as Suzanne mentioned keep the area clean and the moss will grow like crazy!
Good luck and keep in touch!
Alan

Great! I thought I was the only person in the world who liked moss. Try reading George Schenk's "Moss Gardening". It has everything you'd ever want to know about growing moss.

Many thanks for the ideas and the feedback.

I really should look into the netting thing. What sort of nets does one use for this? Is this something Home Depot is likely to sell, or do I need to find a good garden specialist? How visible is this netting? Hmmm...if it's only the squirrels I need to worry about, perhaps it doesn't matter so much. They all spend so much time mounting attacks on my bird feeders I suspect they won't have much energy left to ruin my moss.

I've read often about keeping leaves etc. off the moss. I presume this is an issue of the moss being unable to photosythesize if deprived of all light. The thing I find weird, though, is that I found soooo much moss lying underneath many inches of leaves accumulated over the past six months. Maybe I have "super moss"!!! hehehe

Chad

Chad,
I've seen nylon mesh in hardware stores - black. Home Depot should have some, there is probably a 'horticultural' mesh at 3x cost of other. Squirrels seem to know when you have been messing with the moss and think you must be nuts, sorry, I mean to say: you must have hidden some nuts under it!
Black nylon is invisible at night! mostly during the day if you don't look right at it but you will need to keep it on until the moss is well established or the squirrels have given up (2/3 months?)
Moss will grow under leaf litter. If you have enough moss I'd be inclined to do what a neighbour of mine did and till the soil/moss/leaves/squirrels. He tried to eliminate the moss and grow grass but after 8 months had lousy grass but a bed of moss that I could only dream about after it grew back greener and thicker than before! I think that the moss, being non-vascular, benefits from being buried. That and the release of spores in the soil adds up to a rich result.
Whatever you do, keep posting!
Alan

I think I did something wrong. I rented a tiller, started to attack the mossy area, but everything seized up really quickly. Seems a couple of those squirrels got caught in there, and busted the blades. Looks like I'm back to transplanting.

Chad

Moss seems to do best when transplanted in Fall. It actively grows all winter. Your area is probably pretty moist all year long so it will matter less than in Texas! I gather the moss in flats, first layer green side down, next layer green side up and so on. Don't stack too deep as they will start to break up. I simply use my hand as a spatula and take pieces as they come up. You end up with a jig saw puzzle of moss pieces that fit together nicely.

If your water is chlorinated or contains much lime or calcium, use it sparingly. Let the rain do the majority of the work. I have installed a rainwater harvest system on my gutters to irrigate the moss and other sensitive plants.

You might investigate the patches where moss is not growing and compare it to where it is growing.

Excellent choice in 'lawn',chadh! I also live in NC and have been working for several years on converting my yard to all moss. I have lots of trees, hence lots of shade, and could never get any type of grass to prosper, not to mention I hate mowing! My method for getting the moss to spread is to dig up clumps from different areas around the neighborhood (farms and woodland) place them in plastic bags for several weeks to dry out, then just walk out to the yard, grab a large clump between my hands and rub vigorously to spread the spores. Have been doing this mostly in the spring, but seems to work year-round. Having harvested my clumps from different areas has produced a varied mix of moss with different coloration. Really haven't checked the ph levels, but seems to thrive fine in my red clay without any additives at all! Good luck!

Hey, I'm surprised to see that other people like moss. My small backyard has a woody area with lots of trees, a couple of walnuts too. A really rich heavy blanket of moss comes in the spring before the trees leaf out. It looks like velvet to me. I love the stuff. I don't do anything special to it or for it & it grows just fine. Moss always makes me think of Ireland and fairie folk and magic gardens. In summer the grass and heat seems to overcome it, but I prefer the moss to lawn.

Hi Chad, I'm also in NC. Been moss gardening for a while now (see photos) I like the direct transplant method because it seems to fill in faster. Rain is the best. I never water because my well water has alot of lime. The moss goes dormant & has survived several droughts. Be careful of too much water in warm weather...brown patch & other nasty fungi.
Happy gardening.....jjane

Here is a link that might be useful: nc moss garden

hey chad,
i am beginning a small moss garden also. i have tried the beer/moss mixture and the transplanting. Now i am just sitting back and see what works best for my little spot.
I love petting the moss!!!! haha.

It's nice to know I'm not alone. Crazy, maybe, but not alone. I was afraid to tell anyone that I spend hours sitting outside on an overturned bucket, cleaning my carpet of moss of the twigs, leaves and (ugh) brown stone that has drifted onto the moss from nearby flower beds where I use it as mulch (I must have inadvertantly raked the stones onto the moss when I was raking the leaves last fall).

I read where someone posted that Roundup will get rid of weeds and grass in a moss garden. This has to leave a brown patch where the moss died along with the weeds, right? Unless someone tells me otherwise, I say you have to weed and cleaning off twigs and other debris from your moss by hand.

Okay, now for my million dollar idea, a don't anyone go steeling it. Well okay, maybe not a MILLION DOLLARS, because really, how many nuts like us are out there? But for us nuts, wouldn't it be nice if someone invented a hand held vacuum cleaner for our moss gardens? Lightweight, with gentle suction and a long narrow suction area that would pick up small twigs and leaves on the moss garden but not so strong that it would suck up the moss. Rechargeable, of course.

I am also a moss lover. It all started when I was a child walking through the moss covered gardens of central Jersey...

But I digress. With regard to round-up, I'm pretty sure it will kill moss. My wife used some sort of herbcide to kill weeds in our front yard last spring, and wherever she sprayed there was a brown deadspot that last until sometime this winter.

Landrover, I bet your moss fades in the summer more because of water deprivation than heat.

I'm in Atlanta, and I'm trying to propogate moss in my front yard. Really much of the yard is already covered. I plan to use one of those foam paint brush sort of things and paint the leaves of weeds.

I just transplanted several pieces of moss sod to a bare area in my yard. Think I'll do a little moss hunting this weekend.

I like the idea of drying out moss and spreading its spores by breaking it into pieces, I'll have to give that a try.

I use an old dry-vac with a long extention cord and no special attachments. My family and neighbors laughed at first, but they sure like to walk on the results barefoot.

Roundup works fine on moss, doesn't kill it, just the weeds and grass in it. I spent less than an hour spraying certain areas of my yard last week, it saved me days upon days of hand pulling.

I just wandered into this forum, but I've always liked moss which grew in the woods in MN where I grew up. Now I am in CO and you would think there would be no moss, but there is! In fact, the oddest thing is a few patches that are pushing out from a hole in the plastic where the ground has either heaved or the gravel has been scraped off. Yes, PO put down plastic, then gravel, apparently over gravel. This area is NOT watered and is in full sun and we've had 5 years of drought! I assume the plastic keeps things moist under there. I will have to try to transplant the stuff before the landscapers come to terrace the grade. I just don't know where to put it! I can't exactly duplicate the environment: plastic over dirty gravel, with holes in it? No water and no shade? Maybe I better just try drying it and experiment with the spores since my supply is short lived.

I am trying to grow moss on my wooded property. All my neibors have lots of moss. The people that owned my property never raked the leaves and therefor the moss died. We have been here 2.5 yeras and the moss is now growing. I have lots of weeds now though . Any suggestions?
Thanks

Chad, I just read all the moss postings today. There are a couple of web sites that I like. One of them really explains the net idea. This is part of what it says, "Available through 'Moss Acres,' the mesh netting is perhaps the best all around solution. This limp, reusable netting is UV stable, virtually invisible, and is excellent for catching falling leaves, and for protecting newly established moss from birds and rodents that like to pull up moss in search of insects, grubs and worms. This material can also perform the dual roll of functioning as a deer or bird barrier for ornamental shrubs, ground covers, or berry bushes. That site is, http://www.mossacres.com/info_4.asp and http://www.mossacres.com/info_3.asp

Another site which I like is: http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/gl_plants_other/article/0,1785,HGTV_3609_1378228,00.html

How is your moss garden growing?
eSue

Chad, I just read all the moss postings today. There are a couple of web sites that I like. One of them really explains the net idea. This is part of what it says, "Available through 'Moss Acres,' the mesh netting is perhaps the best all around solution. This limp, reusable netting is UV stable, virtually invisible, and is excellent for catching falling leaves, and for protecting newly established moss from birds and rodents that like to pull up moss in search of insects, grubs and worms. This material can also perform the dual roll of functioning as a deer or bird barrier for ornamental shrubs, ground covers, or berry bushes. That site is, http://www.mossacres.com/info_4.asp and http://www.mossacres.com/info_3.asp

Another site which I like is: http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/gl_plants_other/article/0,1785,HGTV_3609_1378228,00.html

How is your moss garden growing?
eSue

Where to find moss?
Posted by zoeyclairmoss nc (My Page) on Wed, Apr 2, 08 at 18:34

I'm in Cary NC, and just starting a moss garden. Are there any other moss gardeners nearby, because I'm going to need help finding other varieties. The one I'm starting with grows in abundance in the greenway behind my house.
Thanks
Fern

You can purchase several varieties online. Check my thread on Moss links and pan down to the bottom to find links to online retailers. This is probably the easiest way to procure enough moss for your purposes.

Isn't there a powdered chemical that can be sprinkled on the ground to kill grass and encourage the right ph for moss? I could have sworn I saw it discussed on the Moss Acres site, but last I checked there was nothing.

I'm with everyone on this. We are changing the northeast side of the house to all moss where there isn't currently shad garden. And I am using mosses as elements of shade garden areas everywhere.

By the way, I bought haircap moss from Moss Acres to experiment with and it is doing GREAT.

Hi,
I've been establishing a moss garden since November. I have fern moss, Byrum(sidewalk) moss in several colors, and lots of cushion moss. The more flat types are between stones. I was afraid I would get too much sun, especially with the trees bare for winter. So far, so good.Everything I have transplanted is still alive. I am misting several times a week.
I am ready to add some other plants in the garden that thrive along with mosses. Can someone suggest a few? I am in zone 7, but it seems to be more like zone 8 these past several years. Anything I add must be secondary to a sacred sourwood tree that hangs over part of my deck and stone patio.It is my husband's pet.... so I must insure whatever I add does not take away from the tree. I enjoy things that stay green all year. Any suggestions?
Thanks, Milkweed (Lee)

Hello All,
I'm interested in growing moss in an art installation on paper-cast hills. Will I be able to grow moss on handmade paper? What about paper-mache? packaging tape? I know recipes (thanks to the blogs) however, I'm not sure about specific kinds of moss. My limitations (from where I stand now)are that I would need the moss to grow quickly (as in 10 months) with no soil. Is this possible??
Thanks! Any information will be very helpful!
-Emma

Not worth the bother. Moss is living and requires moisture and coolness to grow well. However there are materials available for scenery in model settings. Check the link below.

Here is a link that might be useful: scenery materials