I really love the idea of a thick, fine mat of surface-roots, but cannot keep sphagnum from going green

[SU2]

I've been trying enough containers with enough mixes (pure sphagnum, mixed with substrate, both diced and left as long strands of sphagnum, any combo I could imagine!), the end result is always a heavy green algae (I presume) that covers the sphagnum...am starting to think my area is just too-humid for it to work w/o this effect but hoping there's tricks I may not know of! In the meanwhile, for trees that I've noticed lost some substrate and 'could really use' a top-dressing, I've just been adding more substrate when I'd really have liked to use sphagnum.

I've tried multiple brands of sphagnum, I always rinse it of its fines before using it, and it always becomes a dark-green mess a month or two later! Any advice would be useful, thanks

 

[Lorax7]

I've been trying enough containers with enough mixes (pure sphagnum, mixed with substrate, both diced and left as long strands of sphagnum, any combo I could imagine!), the end result is always a heavy green algae (I presume) that covers the sphagnum...am starting to think my area is just too-humid for it to work w/o this effect but hoping there's tricks I may not know of! In the meanwhile, for trees that I've noticed lost some substrate and 'could really use' a top-dressing, I've just been adding more substrate when I'd really have liked to use sphagnum.

I've tried multiple brands of sphagnum, I always rinse it of its fines before using it, and it always becomes a dark-green mess a month or two later! Any advice would be useful, thanks

Is this really a problem though? My sphagnum does the same thing, but it doesn’t appear to be hurting the tree in any way. I wouldn’t want to show a tree that way for aesthetic reasons, but if it’s serving the intended purpose of helping keep the surface roots moist and shielding them from the sun in order to develop the nebari, who cares?

 

[GrimLore]

sphagnum

Sphagnum = Sphagnum, not decomposed.

Peat Moss = Decomposed Sphagnum... I never had those problems with it...

I used to use Sphagnum to cover and insulate soil surfaces for Winter and actually have better results with a few different things... it is of no use here or at the old place were we had a LOT of plants.

Grimmy

 

[Rodrigo]

I've been trying enough containers with enough mixes (pure sphagnum, mixed with substrate, both diced and left as long strands of sphagnum, any combo I could imagine!), the end result is always a heavy green algae (I presume) that covers the sphagnum...am starting to think my area is just too-humid for it to work w/o this effect but hoping there's tricks I may not know of! In the meanwhile, for trees that I've noticed lost some substrate and 'could really use' a top-dressing, I've just been adding more substrate when I'd really have liked to use sphagnum.

I've tried multiple brands of sphagnum, I always rinse it of its fines before using it, and it always becomes a dark-green mess a month or two later! Any advice would be useful, thanks

I have the same problem! It gets a really dark green and sticky? I honestly just change it out when it gets bad. It gets really annoying but I can't get it to stop either

 

[Djtommy]

Maybe you are putting a too thick layer. I get algae on it if I do that.
What I do now is crush the spagnum in my hand so its fine and make it wet then, get it out of the water and let it dry just a bit, then mix with crushed live moss and put a not too thick layer of it on the surface. After a couple of months the whole surface is green from moss, not algae.

 

[Mike Hennigan]

It is algae, I get the same thing too if I don’t iniculate with shredded collected moss. It’s not going to hurt your tree. The more fertilizer you use the more algae will grow too. Collect green moss from aggregate surfaces... asphalt, sidewalk, etc. shred it up and add some to your sphagnum. Instead of algae you will get nice green moss. Any organic fertilizer you add to your soil surface will kill the green moss in those spots though and turn brown. So you actually can’t win if you’re going to be really picky about the moss/sphagnum looking perfect ?.

 

[sparklemotion]

Are you sure that you are dealing with algae?

Wikipedia: Moss spores germinate to form an algae-like filamentous structure called the protonema.

It's tricky to find non-microscopic pictures of protonema online, but here is some Mirai style top dressing (shredded long fiber spaghnum, sumo ink dyed, and mixed with moss fragments) that I applied this spring and is finally sprouting properly.

If I hadn't nerded out pretty hard on moss over the winter, I probably would have assumed that it was all algae-fied and tossed it a few weeks ago when it did just look like green slime.

Which is all to say...give it some more time and you'll probably have moss.

In this pot, I used the Moss For Sunny Areas fragments from Moss Acres. I have another pot going that used shredded "local" moss, and is still mostly in the green goo stage.