WNC Bonsai
Masterpiece
Irish moss and Scottish moss (Sagina subulata) is not a moss at all, it is a flowering plant.
Moss
- Thread starter eryk2kartman
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JudyB
Queen of the Nuts
And a horribly invasive little asshole too. Just try to get rid of it out of your rootball once it takes hold...
WNC Bonsai
Masterpiece
Funny, my wife can’t get it to grow down here. She has planted it several times in her gardens and it just dries up and croaks. She last tried it between the stepping stones out back and it lasted about 2 weeks. She is having better luck with moss harvested from along the edge of the gutter in the street.
amatbrewer
Shohin
I made the mistake of letting some grow because it looked good cascading down over the side of the pot...now I have it in ever single pot and can't seem to get rid of it. I have taken to carrying a pair of tweezers with my every time I go in the backyard so I can pick out each and every little sprout I find. I fear I am fighting a loosing battle.
JudyB
Queen of the Nuts
They regenerate from their roots, so even just taking the tops off doesn't work. Try painting the leaves with vinegar as a stopgap, and when you repot, make sure you bare-root throughly (if the tree is one you can bare-root...)
I made a mistake one time with horseradish that was being invasive in my garden, thought if I tilled it I could kill it... turns out every little sliver of root that got sliced and diced turned into a new plant. My one and only time using roundup....
BTW, Dan Robinson told me that he uses roundup to kill insistent weeds in his pots... I couldn't recommend as I've never done it, but...
Forsoothe!
Imperial Masterpiece
Round Up is a vary bad idea in a pot, It doesn't always work well, but there is a linear correlation between the value of the plant and speed of death.
Johnathan
Omono
This is why I've never bothered with it. Using the blue juice weekly, I figured it wouldn't survive.
Forsoothe!
Imperial Masterpiece
The buttermilk is approximately uncomposted garbage. I have heard of this process my whole life and and it always struck me as at least, "odd". Buttermilk is wannabe butter. Exactly what is the process by which it helps moss? All moss grows on cellulose of one form or another. Usually, they are substrate specific. Leaf mold is not like the mold that would consume or be the product of fat. I suspect that molds are just as substrate specific as are most other forms of life. If you want mold, I suspect you get all you want. I can't think of any case where moldy fat is used in horticulture, or exactly what the chemical structure of the completed compound might be. C, N, P, or K? Correct me if I'm wrong, but there is no cellulose in fat, whereas all other body parts contain some substantial % of cellulose, in one form or another that is composted into useful stuff, horticulturally.
I don't have a good background in Chemistry or biology, so I need someone who understands what butter is, and what it becomes. Help!
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WNC Bonsai
Masterpiece
Imalwaysnhad thenino
I always had the impression that the buttermilk acted more as a glue to hold it in place than a nutrient for the moss. We tried it and it didn’t work. Here is a link to a good website on the subject. Growing moss
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Forsoothe!
Imperial Masterpiece
There is some useful info on that Link, but it didn't emphasize enough the most important aspect of growing moss anywhere: choose a moss that grows in as close as possible to the same conditions as you intend. If it's growing on a log, and is ~inseparable from the log, it probably needs to grow on wood, and most likely a specific kind of wood. It is very difficult to identity the species of old logs. If it it growing on a concrete surface and its feet can't be lifted off cleanly it probably will only grow on a similarly high pH stone surface. If you find it on a rock and not generally growing on other surfaces nearby, it's probably VERY substrate specific to the compounds in that rock. Take that rock home, or one like it, or expect to be disappointed.
It being the case that mosses ARE substrate specific, not many will choose to grow on buttermilk or the other old wives' tale sloppy mixes. And, yes, if moss want to grow on your chosen object, and that object has been there for some time, it would have moss on it. Moss is endemic, -all over the place and spore blows around like pollen does. Maybe your best bet to move moss to your situation is a moss growing on a scrim of soil at the edges of pavement. While that is probably a neutral to higher pH, the soil will probably be, ~more or less~ generalized minerals typical of ~soil~. So, stick with like-to-like surfaces and sun exposures.
Lichens follow the same rules: if it grows on a maple tree, don't try to use it on a Birch or Oak, etc. You can collect pieces of bark with Lichen on it and "sand" it into a container. Apply it to your wet bark as horizontally as possible with a salt shaker, let dry, and wait. That which washes off onto the soil at the base of your tree may or may not send spore to your intended surface, eventually.
