Boss of the moss
Patience pays off with lush, velvety green covering
Many of us have all of the conditions necessary to engage in one of the trendiest and most ancient ways to green up our gardens: planting moss.
Compact and acidic clay soil? Check. Mosses are among the few plants that actually prefer the compact clay soil we all labor to make more hospitable to the others.
Big trees producing so much shade almost nothing grows under them? Check.
Patience? Um, not so much.
Two out of three isn’t bad, and we can always work on patience because having a mossy lawn, garden or container is cool and cooling in so many ways.
“It’s stunningly beautiful,” said Diane Meucci, co-owner of Gardens Oy Vey, a nursery and landscape design company in Arlington. More than half of the 4.5-acre property she shares with her husband, Wolfgang Marquardt, is covered in moss.
After they bought the nursery in 1988, they worked hard to rid it of the non-native invasive “thugs” such as kudzu, poison ivy, Japanese honeysuckle and privet that had gone wild.
“Then the moss started showing up,” Meucci said. They encouraged it to spread by removing debris, especially the leaves that fall from the trees that shade it, and by carefully controlling the weeds that pop up by spot-spraying them with Roundup.
In the process, Meucci discovered moss does not need copious amounts of water to maintain its velvet looks through the seasons and over the years.
“We have seven to 10 species of native mosses on our property, and they are used to being in a rain forest in the winter and a desert in the summer,” she said, referring to the usual wet and dry periods in this region. “We couldn’t afford to water what we’ve got.”
Moss does require regular watering when it is getting established.
To get started, Meucci recommends buying or collecting various mosses and separating them into small “plugs” for planting.
Mosses are primitive plants that have probably been on Earth longer than any other terrestrial plants. They don’t have true leaves, branches, roots or seeds. They absorb water over the entire surface of their tiny shoots and reproduce by spores.
Moss easily forms colonies, a growth habit that creates its carpet-like appearance.
When establishing moss in the garden, first clear the area of weeds. There is no need to fluff up the soil with a tiller or rake. Remember, moss likes compact soil.
Meucci recommends laying down a bed of hardwood mulch on top of the soil, about 1 to 3 inches deep. Spread the mulch evenly to create a level growing area. Then place the plugs in the mulch in a scattered pattern, and keep them moist.
The best time to plant moss is in fall or early spring when Mother Nature is likely to provide the water the moss needs.
Celia Chastain, floriculturist at the Dixon Gallery and Gardens, started renovating a moss garden in a deeply shaded area on the East Memphis site about two years ago.
Last weekend, members of the local Bamboo Chapter of Ikebana International displayed their Japanesestyle floral arrangements in the moss garden at the Dixon, an apt choice because moss is an important element in Japanese garden design.
“In Japan, they don’t use mulch, but they do have lots of moss,” said Nick Esthus, curator of the Japanese and Asian gardens at the Memphis Botanic Garden.
He has been encouraging the growth of moss in shady parts of both gardens by blowing debris and leaves off the surface and restricting foot traffic on it with the use of nanakogaki, a low fence created from arched sections of split bamboo embedded into the ground.
Esthus said you can have a good covering of moss in two to three years; Meucci says it may take five.
If you don’t have access to moss, you can purchase several types at Gardens Oy Vey, 4655 Chester in Arlington. It is open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday and Saturday and by appointment at other times. Call 901-867-8367, and leave a message. All calls will be returned, usually on Mondays.