Tips for growing moss on rocks.
I've never actually tried this, but I've been meaning to. Here is a recipe I've been told works well to give planters and rocks that aged look.
Put a handful of whatever type of moss you want to grow into a blender with 1/2 teaspoon of sugar and a can of cheap beer (or buttermilk) and mix it up just long enough for it to get thick and soupy. For the sake of your blender, try and remove as much dirt from the moss as you can.
Use a paint brush to spread the mixture over items you want to grow moss on, including on the ground between stones in walkways and paths. Keep these items in the shade and mist them once in a while to keep then from drying out. In anywhere from a few months to a year you should start seeing some moss growth.
I've also read you can paint plain yogurt directly onto planters and rocks and then rub those items with garden dirt containing moss spores. If you're not familiar with what moss spores look like, when they sprout up from the moss, they look like little bristles of hair with wheat seeds on the tips.
By Ellen Brown
I read this somewhere and tried it and it actually does work. You go into the woods and collect moss from the ground or trees and you put it in a blender with buttermilk then pour the mixture on your rocks. I didn't like the idea of putting it my blender, so I put it in a jar and shook it and poured it on.
The only problem I had was the rocks that got more sun, the moss would dry out and die. But if I kept it damp with the hose now and then it would survive. Not sure what makes it work unless it is the cultures in the buttermilk, but it worked for me. I hope it works for you.
By Mividaloca291
I was given a slightly different recipe. Blend a small amount of moss with plain yogurt, then spread the mixture on the item/area that you want the moss to grow.
By Claudia - MD
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Get an old blender or mixer from a yard sale or flea mkt.They you can have it dedicated to your moss.
the picture is beautiful, i had to set it as my background for puter. Sorry, i have no advise.
Moss never acutely die, if your moss has dried out, that means is in a hibernate stage, just add water and it will come right back to it's lush self. Mosses loves water! Also if you do some research, there are some mosses that grow faster then other, because some species of moss will clone them selves as well as reproduce.
I guess for encouraging moss to grow on rocks the dairy products simply help the moss 'smoothie' to stick to the rock surface and not fall off (heaven help you when it rains though and all washes away, so best to cover it with clear plastic until it takes). You could use any sticky creamy organic stuff. It's not about any spooky nutrients.
Regarding moss for bonsai, my method is simple. I gather moss from rocks when it's dry as it's much easier to handle. I use a very stiff old artists brush to scrape the moss into a tray - the stiff brushing action automatically turns it into a fine consistency, like 'floss', incorporating obvious mature moss filaments as well as spores, plus the very fine first generation moss growths that seem to be green film.
I mix this dry moss 'floss' with equal amounts of dry fine soil, add a little water to moisten the mixture so that it adheres to itself, then I just press the mixture onto my rocks and bonsai landscapes. Because it's a malleable mixture the growth looks natural in my landscape, whereas if you just lift off lumps of growing moss from outdoors and press that on your bonsai you simply get incongruous lumps of moss, or a moss 'toupee' that doesn't look like it grew naturally in your landscape.
Once planted, I use a spray bottle and mist it with water every day. The result is superb. One of my small moss mountains is under a glass dome to keep it humid, which looks nice too. The small moss filaments look like distant pine trees on the side of a mountain cliff. Love this stuff!
Who's going to take care of me when my wife catches me using her blender for this?
I have heard of doing it by using milk that is either spoiled or about to clabber/spoil. I won't buy buttermilk since I know bakers that don't care to buy buttermilk will add vinegar to actual milk to make it. They give it a few hours after adding it at room temp. My mother used to make my Grandmother her buttermilk like that. I don't know the ratios of vinegar to milk but I don't think it's much vinegar to the milk. The vinegar in the milk will throw the PH up way too high for anything to grow and thrive.
Also many years ago, I saw an episode of some Gardening/Landscaping Show, or it's possible it was Martha Stewart Show. I am unsure which TV show it was. Whoever it was used plain whole milk that was going off. It wasn't quite spoiled but they got it from a grocer friend and they did say it would be rank in a few hours at most. The one who tasted it since it didn't smell said it had that going off quality to it being rather sour but no clotting had begun. Anyways, I did it with that since I'm divorced and a gallon of milk lasts me a very long time. I had between 24 and 32 ounces of milk, according to my blenders gauge. It was 5 days past expiring. I bought it at Albertersons Grocery Store since their milk tends to be tasting very good 4 days after the best by date always for me. I used that with a 1/2 cup of sugar, since I have seen many suggesting that sugar helps and plants love sugar (Give your plants a spraying of Coke around the soil and on the leaves with a drop or 4 of dish soap. They will thrive using a hose connected lawn sprayer to cut that mixture to its lowest setting) I blended it until the sugar dissolved completely then I added my moss to that mixture and filled my blender the rest the way with water.
Since the blender has a serving spout I went ahead and wrote "F*ck U" with it behind my apartment with the first mix, and poured it on top of a chunk of soil by the rain gutter's downspout. The reason for cursing is because whatever I plant out there, the neighbors steal or the apartment Weed Wacks. I got 2 managers back to not weed wacking it and I had a planter with lots of flowers. They got 18 inches tall covered with unopened blossoms and that next morning, I guess every woman in the complex had a pot of flowers. I didn't get to see any of them bloom. The asses dug them out and ripped them out. They lowered that soil by 4 inches, stealing the flowers I had cared for. Next I planted onion sets and potatoes. All together, they were in the ground about 75 days and all were dug up by the thieving scum here. Neither were ripe, they were all 90 days to harvest plantings.
Anyway, I am now trying moss simply because I don't think they will steal it, but who knows. The words are for the ones who have stolen all I have planted in the past. Also I had sprayed all the onions and potatoes the morning before with a grub killing spray so hopefully that theft made them very ill. I don't think that Bacillus T. stuff will harm you since it is an organic treatment, according to the label. I will return in a few months and add pictures if it is still there. I know my unit is shady enough since all my sun-loving plants died from lack of sun on my patio. :-)
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