Moss Topiary

The Right Moss Makes All the Difference

Making a moss topiary was pie in the sky for me - I never imagined it was so easy.  Finding the right moss was a different story.

There are two kinds of moss; one makes clumps and only spreads by spores when it flowers, the other one looks more like tiny ferns and it actually creeps along.  The one you want is the second kind, which fortunately for me, grows all over the place around my garden.

I planted the clump type around the edges of this little plastic painted pot, but I wanted to do something different with the rest if it.  I could have built up the center with a shallow mound to give it some height, but I wanted more - much more.

I made some moss ball kokedama which can be hung up, so that's where I got the idea to use panty hose to make a rounded shape.  There is a limit to how big of a ball you can get with these, about five inches or so across, I knew that's where the line was drawn.

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The soil I filled the panty hose with is some of my local soil, very silty and it already grows lots of moss, mixed with about an equal amount of peat moss.

This is where I got stuck.  How on earth do I stick the moss onto the ball to give it the tight contact it needs to root in?  I know!  I'll wind wire around it to hold it.  Tie wire comes in very handy for all kinds of things, and here's yet another use for it.