Large Scale Central

The magic of moss

Sometimes, in my railroad of climate zone 9a (EDIT 3: Actually it was zone 7a, my bad), little patches of moss come and go. I found that by regularly weeding around and watering the moss (like, almost every day) I can very slowly encourage the moss to spread. I don’t have any good photos at the moment but I will be sure to post them here tomorrow.

I really like moss because it’s quite pretty essentially works as scale grass. I don’t know what type of moss I’m growing because I didn’t buy it from a plant store, it’s essentially just “wild” moss. Usually these don’t spread or last very long, hopefully it will with my intervention.

Side note, it seems that the moss that grows on hard-pressed dirt ground is shorter and arguably perfect scale grass, but weeding is interesting no hard pressed ground; the weeds are far smaller in size but very many in number, the first few weeks seemed fruitless since i just kept weeding and didn’t see the moss spread. Seems to have been worth it though, hopefully

I also read on some article that moss plants do go dormant during the winter, but in doing so they still remain green… sounds perfect for beautifying a garden railroad… though my progress is slow, I’d love to hear any thoughts or tips for growing moss :slight_smile:

Edit: yeah i forgot to get it today. Sorry! I’ll get it tomorrow.

Edit 2: Okay, I’m finally uploading pictures now. They don’t look the best in these photos; the moss is greener and more vibrant on some days than others.


Getting them to spread more is a work in progress.

Max, i have a bunch in my yard. that said you may want to consider drip watering depending on your climate. i have some on the railroad but it is pretty dormant right now as we are in a drought in southern NH. it does seam to come back when the rainfall resumes.

Al P.

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You can help moss grow in areas by mixing yogurt and moss in a blender, then painting that on rocks and bricks. Keep it lightly misted and the moss will take hold.

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Interesting, I’ll be sure to try this tomorrow. Thank you!

Well, I’m not sure how to set up drip watering here, but I do water it just about every day. Having a prolonged water supply does make sense though.

Another method is moss and buttermilk.

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I think Moss would rather be misted than dripped if you set up a watering system.

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I had real good luck with moss on my RR in CT. It was in a mostly shaded area and grew naturally. I helped a bit by transplanting some. Keeping it weeded was another story! I would spend several hours lying on the ground carefully pulling weeds before pictures…

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That’s what I’ve heard in a few places.

I have fallen and can’t get back up, comes to mind :kissing:

Very beautiful! I hope that my garden can someday look half as good x)

It took many years of maturing to get there, But now it’s gone :frowning:

Stick with it and give it time. You will get there!

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I uploaded the pictures so now you can get an idea of what mine currently looks like The second photo with the moss on the hill started out good, then the moss looked completely brown and dead, but after trying a little and getting lucky with many rainy days in a row, the moss mostly came back to life. My watering can broke so until I can get a new one I just dump water with a paint bucket… :>