Features of the use of moss in country design. Determining a place for a garden, preparing planting material, planting it on stones and soil, caring for an evergreen covering. A moss garden is an original composition, which implies the use of lower plants in landscape design on a separately selected area. An evergreen decorative carpet will be a wonderful decoration of the territory in early spring or late autumn, it will be able to breathe life into corners unsuitable for growing other crops, damp and dark, and will also be an excellent background for further planting flowers and laying out flower beds. How to grow moss in the garden will be discussed in this article.
Features of a moss garden as an element of landscape design
For the first time, moss was used in design at monasteries in Japan. The local monks sincerely believed that such a design makes the garden special and gives the people in it a sense of peace.
Today, many owners of summer cottages are planting moss as an alternative to a green lawn. In addition, very often in rock gardens or rockeries, you can observe large boulders completely overgrown with moss.
The thickets of this plant are able to give the garden a perfect look. An evergreen mossy carpet decorates it perfectly in early spring before the trees begin to bloom. The moss cover looks just as amazing in late autumn during the gradual retreat of the plantations for winter sleep. In summer, moss protects the root system of shrubs from overheating and drying out.
The decorativeness of many bryophytes successfully competes with the beauty of the most exquisite flowers. Mosses of some species have multi-colored leaves, original crowns or miniature fruits - the so-called "spore-bearing capsules".
Mosses, of which there are more than a hundred species, belong to the type of leafy plants. They consist of stems and leaves in the absence of vessels and roots. The functions of absorbers of moisture necessary for the vital activity of moss are performed by its filamentous processes. Root analogues are completely absent only in peat moss - sphagnum. Let's take a look at the most common types of these moisture-loving flora:
- Leucobryum … Mosses of this genus look like rounded green pads. The plant loves shady places, but is patient with small amounts of sunlight. Grows in sandy soil.
- Hypnum moss … Great for slab gaps, stone patios, moss lawns and green lawns. It is most commonly found on trees, ground, and boulders. The plant prefers life in the shade, occasionally being "attacked" by the sun. In ancient Russia, log cabins were caulked with such moss, and modern Koreans eat it - they claim that the plant has a pleasant taste.
- Kukushkin flax … It belongs to the classics of a mossy garden, especially popular in Japan. The plant lives in swampy areas, can reach 1-40 cm, is actively used in folk medicine.
- Moss dicranum … Refers to the species of rock dwellers. Its height reaches 4 cm, has shades of green. It takes root well on stones and concrete walls.
- Fern moss … Creates a soft and very thick carpet, looks like a thicket of small ferns. The plant is undersized, loves shade and is able to be aggressive, surviving other people's mosses for a long time from their habitat.
- Peat moss … This is a marsh plant. Gardeners most often use it as a consumable. For example, such moss is added to flower containers with soil. This gives it the looseness necessary to maintain the desired moisture level. This moss has a wide variety of shades, ranging from light green to bright red. Perfect for decorating the shores of artificial summer cottages.
Although some representatives are called "mosses", they are not at all. These are usually lichens and certain types of ground cover plants. For example, a short perennial bryozoan subulate has the name "Irish moss". This is a great option for a lawn that does not require mowing at all. A nice surprise for those who want to make a lawn out of bryozoans will be a beautiful flowering of a soft green carpet.
Icelandic and deer moss also belong to the genus of lichens. These plants only live on trees and rocks. Many gardeners consider their appearance a good sign in terms of the ecology of the area. Reindeer moss is valuable for garden decoration with its silvery color. The plant is frost-resistant, and its vitality is so high that it can displace mosses that grow nearby.
By itself, moss can serve as a therapeutic agent and a kind of compass for tourists, as a house insulation and as a soil protector against erosion.
How to make a moss garden on the site
If you compare the cultivation of mosses with flowers, then the procedure will be much less laborious. However, here, too, there are certain rules for choosing a place and preparing planting material, planting plants and caring for them.
Choosing a place for a moss garden
Active growth of moss can be observed only in ecologically clean areas. Therefore, if he has taken root in a suburban area, then the place for the summer residence has been chosen correctly.
When creating a moss garden with your own hands, you should adhere to the following recommendations:
- A shady place is needed for the plant to grow. Hot sun rays or dry soil are detrimental to him. And morning natural light is never superfluous. Under its influence, the color of the cover becomes more saturated.
- An excellent place to grow moss is near trees with a crown of medium density.
- Planting it is best oriented from the north and west sides of the site. It is not for nothing that taiga moss is most often found on trees from the north. This can be taken into account when determining the location of the garden.
- Damp areas of soil are most preferred for planting moss. The soil on them should be slightly acidified with a pH of about 6, not higher than 6, 5.
Preparation of planting material
When harvesting moss for your garden, we recommend that you take on board a few tips on where to get it:
- Decorative moss can be purchased at a specialized dealer … Before being sold, the plants here are treated with special preparations, but at the same time retain their properties. When buying, it is worth asking about the place of collection of seedlings from the seller.
- Moss can be collected by yourself in the forest … In this case, the place of the future planting of the plant must be taken into account. So, if you want to decorate the lawn, you should choose moss growing on the soil. To decorate trees, it is better to choose the one that lives in the forest in the trees.
- In addition to the forest, moss is easy to find in the city.… Parks, old trees and damp walls are worth seeing for this purpose. It is better to choose a mature specimen that can withstand a transplant painlessly.
Collect moss carefully. It must not be pulled out to avoid damage to the root outgrowths. The area overgrown with a plant is recommended to first carefully dig, and then pull it out of the soil. You should also be careful when separating moss from hard wood or stone surfaces.
If it will be planted on an area of considerable size, it is recommended to select plants with different shades. Based on the general style of the garden, moss can be planted with cushions in a checkerboard pattern or shaped into geometric shapes on the landscape, creating a multicolored soft carpet.
Instructions for planting moss in the garden
The garden, made in retro style, looks unusual and attractive. Here moss helps to visually age various objects. They can be used to decorate fountains, statues and other figures, considering, however, that they must be constantly in the shade. In this case, planting moss should be carried out on a rough surface, for which abrasive processing of products is used.
To create extra coolness, you can decorate the roof or facade of the house with moss. This design looks great on a garden pond, when framing paths or when filling the joints between their tiles.
After harvesting the material, you should start planting it, which is recommended according to the instructions below:
- In order to restore moss after injuries as a result of removal from the inhabited surface and replenishment of nutrient deficiencies, it is necessary to perform a special procedure. You need to put the plant in a container with spring water and wait for it to "revive".
- You should know that those mosses that were transplanted in autumn, and not in spring, feel better in a new place.
- Remove unnecessary debris from the moss planting site. Then, with the help of a spatula, loosen the soil to a depth of 2-4 cm, making small holes.
- Now you need to prepare the nutrient soil for the growth of the moss. To do this, mix black soil and peat, plus clay with expanded clay. Pour the soil into the prepared holes. The substrate for growing moss can also be collected in the forest at the place of his "residence".
- It is recommended to plant moss plots, observing an interval of about 30 cm between their centers. This is one of the conditions for plant growth.
- It is not necessary to press the seedling with effort when planting, but at the same time it is worth making sure that there are no air sinuses. Immerse yourself a couple of centimeters deep, then sprinkle it with soil and crush it a little.
- If you plan to grow the moss on a slope, you should take care that the seedlings do not slip. To avoid this problem, areas of moss can be fixed with thin sticks.
- Moss growing on rotten trees before transplanting should be provided with the same conditions in a new place. To survive, they need rotting wood. Therefore, it is worth stocking up on rotten and wooden snags.
- To decorate a pond or swamp with moss, part of their shore must be planted with a green carpet at water level. In this case, sphagnum moss is usually planted, it can form peat after a certain time. It is convenient for them to decorate the area around the pool or stream bank.
- It is recommended to water the moss immediately after planting, and then periodically moisten it.
For the garden, forest dwellers are good - violets, tree ferns, etc. You can plant garden flowers that tolerate shade well. Also spruce, juniper and other conifers are perfectly combined with moss.
The backfill of stones looks great on the mossy cover of the garden, especially when they are gray. An excellent addition to a mossy lawn can be shrub branches covered with lichens of different colors.
How to grow moss on stone
Mossy stones are good in alpine slides or rockeries. To grow moss, you need to choose rough specimens, placing them in the shade. The mossy stone should not completely grow with it; the same proportion must be observed. To cultivate moss on a stone, you can use the following recipes:
- Take the pads of a green plant, put them in a blender, add a little water, mix. Then you need to add forest land to the resulting solution. It is recommended to coat the stone with such a mixture. From above it should be covered with a film, which is periodically recommended to be removed for airing.
- Moss pads should be mixed with 2 tsp. sugar and 100 g of kefir, mix in a blender and add water. The finished mixture should be applied to suitable surfaces. During the growth of plants, they must be covered with foil.
- Graffiti made of moss is considered a fashionable trend today. To create it, you need a special "paint", consisting of the following components: moss pads, two glasses of yogurt, 200 g of water and 1/2 teaspoon of sugar. The mixture must be stirred until it reaches the consistency of the paint. With this composition, you can make inscriptions and drawings on walls and wood.
Moss care rules
A ready-made moss garden needs to be looked after, the beauty of the entire carpet lawn depends on it.
Care rules are as follows:
- New moss is a thin film of algae on the ground. Young pads will appear in 35-40 days. For better plant survival on a garden lawn, the rug from it must be kept moist for three weeks.
- Instead of the dead, new specimens must be planted.
- To restore dried moss, it is enough to water it abundantly.
- The moss turf does not need to be trimmed, but it needs to be kept very clean. Therefore, it is worthwhile to remove fallen leaves and harmful weeds in time. During the leaf fall, you can spread a net over the moss, and then roll it up, removing the leaves.
How to make a moss garden - watch the video:
Moss is a beautiful and useful planting for a household plot; its planting does not require money. In a mossy garden, it is recommended to occupy the background with forest plants, and you can observe the beauty of the lawn all year round, since the moss cover is evergreen.
