Want a little patch of moss? Make your own!

For a dry area like Beijing, moss is not common. So whenever I have the opportunity to go to a humid area, I am keen to look for moss at the base of a wall or a tree trunk in the shade. Seeing a variety of mosses growing freely in the cracks of rocks or beside streams, my mood will become very comfortable. Sometimes, I can't help but touch these furry mosses with my hands. That feeling is so relaxing.

Mosses growing on rocks around Baishiya Karst Cave in Xiahe County, Gannan. Photo taken by Lin Lian

Out of my love for moss and the difficulty in finding wild moss in Beijing, I decided to make a small moss ecological tank by myself, bringing these green micro-landscapes back to my own life and temporarily satisfying my interest.

If you also like or are even addicted to admiring these lovely mosses, why not join me in creating a moss landscape to add some vitality to your life.

1. What are mosses?

Bryophytes actually include three groups: liverworts, hornworts and mosses. The mosses we often refer to are actually generally referring to plants in the "mosses". Bryophytes are different from most other plants. They do not have vascular bundles for transporting water and are non-vascular plants. In addition, they do not have flowers and seeds, but reproduce and expand by producing spores through sporangia.

If you want to make a moss ecological tank, you must first understand the habits of moss.

For mosses, they only need a moist environment and sunlight to grow. Most mosses prefer a high humidity environment, but this does not mean that they can be directly soaked in water. Looking at the photo of mosses in the wild above, you may know that they are attached to rocks, not soaked in water. The healthy growth of mosses also requires good ventilation and sufficient light. If some mosses are soaked directly in water, they will probably not live long and will be "drowned".

2. Items Preparation

After roughly understanding the habits of mosses, we can probably choose some mosses that we want to cultivate and plant. For people living in the north, we can choose some mosses that do not require high humidity, such as white-haired mosses. However, please note that when buying white-haired mosses on e-commerce platforms, you should be more careful to identify them and choose to buy artificially cultivated white-haired mosses. Do not buy moss plants collected in the wild. Collecting in the wild will cause great damage to the environment and is not recommended.

Moss alone is not enough, we also need to prepare some other items. Moss landscape is not like other landscapes, such as rainforest tanks, water plant tanks, etc., which have complex materials. You only need some simple materials to make a good moss landscape:

The "carrier" can be a bottle with a closed or open mouth, a broken flower pot, or even a piece of sunken wood with a concave shape. They can all be used as carriers for making moss landscapes. The more natural the carrier you choose, the better the effect may be.

Peat, pumice (3-5 mm diameter particles, Akadama of the same size is also OK) and dry sphagnum moss for the base;

Small pieces of blue dragon stone or small pieces of driftwood, these stone and wood materials can add some artistic conception to your moss landscape;

Moss, it is recommended to choose white hair moss, which is very easy to maintain. In addition, large gray moss, small gray moss or blossoming moss are also good choices;

A small watering can to keep your moss landscape moisturized;

Other plants. Just a piece of moss may not meet your needs. If you feel that you need to add some variety to your moss landscape, you can choose to plant some small plants such as spiderwort, saxifrage, wolftail fern, Fuchs fern or green cloud fern.

After preparing the above items, you can start making moss landscape.

3. Make Moss Landscape

This step is actually not difficult. A small moss landscape may only take two hours to complete.

First, take out the carrier you prepared for planting moss. Take an open bottle as an example. Place some light stones on the bottom of the bottle. You can make it low in the front and high in the back, and two to three centimeters thick in the front. This will give your final small landscape a more perspective feel.

Then, soak the dry sphagnum moss in water, squeeze out the water and evenly spread it on the pumice. The dry sphagnum moss here can isolate the pumice from the upper soil to be placed later, and can also play a certain role in moisturizing, so it does not need to be spread very thickly.

Photo taken by: Lin Lian

After laying the sphagnum moss, you can pour some peat soil on it, also to create a "low front and high back" appearance. You don't need to put too much, about two centimeters thick will be enough.

After laying the bottom, if you want to add some other elements to your moss landscape, you can now take out the blue dragon stone and driftwood you prepared, arrange them into the structure you want, and bury them slightly in the peat soil to ensure that they will not fall. Here I suggest that you do not incorporate too many stones or driftwood, and the total should not exceed three stones or one driftwood. After all, for a small moss landscape, too complicated will appear a bit messy. Note that you need to clean the blue dragon stone and driftwood before using them.

Photo taken by: Lin Lian

Once all the soil, stone or wood materials are laid, you can start planting plants and moss.

You can directly lay the white-haired moss you bought in the tank. White-haired moss is very easy to maintain. Even if you forget to water it, it will not die, but will be "dehydrated". As long as you spray water, the state will quickly recover. After laying it, remember to clean the surface of the moss to remove any dirt, and then you can lay it on the bottom surface you just set. When laying, pay attention to the connection between each two pieces of moss, and do not leave any gaps. After tidying up, a fresh moss micro landscape is completed.

4. Maintenance

The newly completed moss landscape needs to be sprayed with a lot of water. Try using a spray bottle filled with pure water to spray the moss or the blank space, allowing the water to slowly penetrate to the bottom, and ensure that there is about one centimeter of accumulated water on the light stone layer. Remember not to let the accumulated water submerge the light stone layer, otherwise a large amount of accumulated water will be very unfriendly to the growth of moss.

If the indoor environment is too dry and the accumulated water dries up in one day, you can use the "stifling" method: cover the mouth of the tank with plastic wrap, and then open it from time to time to let in air.

In addition, during normal maintenance, you can place the moss landscape in a bright indoor environment, but avoid direct sunlight. At the same time, please do not expose the moss to the dry and cold air in winter or under the air conditioning vents to avoid water loss and low temperatures. In addition, there is no need to prepare fertilizer for the moss, just spray water every day and have a certain amount of light.

In this way, a small piece of exquisite moss landscape is completed. I believe that with continuous maintenance in the future, they will grow better and better and add a lot of beauty to your life.

The article is produced by Science Popularization China-Starry Sky Project (Creation and Cultivation). Please indicate the source when reprinting.

Author: Lin Lian Popular Science Creator

Reviewer: Wang Kang, Director of the Science Museum of the National Botanical Garden