James Wong, an ethnobotanist and known as @botanygeek on Twitter shared a YouTube video of Mossin' Annie dressed in marvelous shades of purple, mossin' away, selecting them from kid-sized sleds filled with mosses acquired from parking lots and the such before placing a patchwork of different varieties in a shady part of her garden. His enthusiasm for her enthusiam as both are passionate about mosses made me wonder on the fifty-third day of the lockdown (Confinement Jour 53) if there was something I could do with those growing in our urban garden.
Ideas started to bubble up, one by one, until they were realised into a triangular arrangement of square plastic pots whose colours complemented each other as their points came together in the centre, that is, blue almost touches the orange while violet, the yellow. The pots being surrounded by wood chips contained in a terracotta saucer are provided with a neutral background. My moss interest is merely one of a novice, but my love of colour is obsessional.
One of my garden hats became the inspiration for remembering and then using the recycled, brightly coloured, plastic pots. Strips of bubble-gum pink, lime-green, and orange are toned down with the inclusion of bands of more neutral accents like navy blue and brown.
The lovely emerald patches are most likely fern mosses.
So where was I able to find these specimens? One came from a tub of miniature roses. That dark patch roughly in the middle was where that moss once lived. It was scooped up with a spoon, though it could have just been pulled away with my fingers. Potting mix was moistened and packed all the way to the rim of a pot; the moss was placed on top and lightly pressed down.
The other three came from the central, cement path's end which is close to our garden's wild area. Those were quite thin and needed to be scraped off with a knife.
They were growing under ivy.
The wild area is about one-hundred-square-metres and runs across the back width of our six-hundred-square-metre main garden. Since the lockdown, this shady area has been included in my daily, thirty-minute garden walks taken at twilight. Below shows a path flanked with blooming, and ever-so fragrant, honeysuckle.
The portable, shade-loving moss garden was designed to be placed under the ivy-covered pergola where I often go to rest after a gardening chore. As I sat relaxing and looking at the finished project, I thought, very adorable, but not substantial enough, so . . .
. . . the mosses are moving into bigger real estate where they will be spritzed with water from time to time.
À la prochaine!
Ideas started to bubble up, one by one, until they were realised into a triangular arrangement of square plastic pots whose colours complemented each other as their points came together in the centre, that is, blue almost touches the orange while violet, the yellow. The pots being surrounded by wood chips contained in a terracotta saucer are provided with a neutral background. My moss interest is merely one of a novice, but my love of colour is obsessional.
One of my garden hats became the inspiration for remembering and then using the recycled, brightly coloured, plastic pots. Strips of bubble-gum pink, lime-green, and orange are toned down with the inclusion of bands of more neutral accents like navy blue and brown.
The lovely emerald patches are most likely fern mosses.
So where was I able to find these specimens? One came from a tub of miniature roses. That dark patch roughly in the middle was where that moss once lived. It was scooped up with a spoon, though it could have just been pulled away with my fingers. Potting mix was moistened and packed all the way to the rim of a pot; the moss was placed on top and lightly pressed down.
The other three came from the central, cement path's end which is close to our garden's wild area. Those were quite thin and needed to be scraped off with a knife.
They were growing under ivy.
The wild area is about one-hundred-square-metres and runs across the back width of our six-hundred-square-metre main garden. Since the lockdown, this shady area has been included in my daily, thirty-minute garden walks taken at twilight. Below shows a path flanked with blooming, and ever-so fragrant, honeysuckle.
The portable, shade-loving moss garden was designed to be placed under the ivy-covered pergola where I often go to rest after a gardening chore. As I sat relaxing and looking at the finished project, I thought, very adorable, but not substantial enough, so . . .
. . . the mosses are moving into bigger real estate where they will be spritzed with water from time to time.
À la prochaine!
