How do you deal with a patch of bare ground in your yard? That is the existential challenge of gardening, isn’t it? The first, most logical choice for many is to plant a lawn. We see lawns everywhere in our neighborhoods and public spaces. Grasses may be the default ground cover for many people. But a grassy lawn gets expensive. It costs time to maintain. It requires ongoing investments in grass seed, fertilizers and other chemicals to feed it...
Mosses are wild, native plants, and find spots to grow where conditions support them. They reproduce sexually with tiny spores that blow on the wind. They need consistent moisture to transform from a spore to a small plant, but they do it without any interference from the gardener. One way to develop a moss garden is to provide favorable conditions and let the mosses colonize on their own terms. This may take several years, even with consistent efforts to keep...
A fern table needs mosses to serve as mulch, holding the planting medium in place. Moss Garden Resources Find links to some excellent books, informative websites, and good sources for moss listed below: Hamilton, Helen. Ferns and Mosses of Virginia’s Coastal Plain. 2017. Martin, Annie. The Magical World of Moss Gardening. 2015. Nordström, Ulrica. Moss: From Forest to Garden: A Guide to the Hidden World of Moss. 2018 Smith, Richard R. New Methods in Moss Gardening: How to Grow...
Ferns have successfully propagated themselves in nature, with no human assistance, for millennia. So it shouldn’t be too complicated, right?
An older woman made her way slowly through the aisles of the garden center’s outdoor display area, leaning heavily on a cane. As I turned, hands loaded with small pots, she was behind me. She smiled and asked whether I had seen any bee balm on the display of herbs I’d been scanning. We began to chat, and it turned out that she wanted to attract hummingbirds to the balcony of her apartment. Someone had told her that hummingbirds...