How to Harvest Live Moss

You can harvest moss growing on shingles without damaging the environment.

Mosses were among the earliest plant life on earth and have been objects of fascination for gardeners due to their variety of textures since perhaps the Garden of Eden. Since mosses are often slow to regenerate after being harvested, they are now protected plants in many areas. You should never collect live mosses from conservation lands without a permit; you can probably find mosses growing right around your own home on shingles, rocks and logs in moist, shaded areas. Harvesting live moss is a simple process requiring little more than a paper sack and your bare hands. Does this Spark an idea?

Things You'll Need

• Paper bag
• Felt-tipped pen

Instructions

1. Collect mosses at the wettest time of the year for your area, preferably in the fall in order to eliminate problems associated with the heat of the summer. Select mosses that are growing wild under conditions similar to those where you wish to cultivate them, for best success. Look for mosses growing on trees, roofs, rocks and bricks, and those embedded in lawns. Observe their growing habits and textures in order to select the mosses that will best complement your garden design.

2. Harvest healthy mosses that separate easily from the surfaces where they are growing by lifting small sheets or fragments of the moss with your hands. Leave at least half of the moss colony behind. Collect moss from that location no more than once every five years if you wish for the colony to remain intact. Collect mosses growing in undesirable locations such as roofs and walls as often and in as large a quantity as you desire.

3. Place the collected mosses in paper bags to allow them to dry slightly before placing them in their final location. Label each bag with the name of the moss you have collected so that you will be able to quickly identify it when transplanting. Place the paper bags inside a larger plastic bag if you will be collecting mosses for any length of time to prevent them from drying fully.

Tips & Warnings

• Besides live transplantation, mosses are often dried and turned into a slurry that can be painted directly on objects where you wish for them to grow.

• Although some moss collectors advocate collecting moss using metal implements, this can damage the parent moss colony and its host material. If you wish to directly transplant live moss, collection with bare hands and paper bags is safest for these fragile plants.

References

• Oregon State University: Establishing Mosses in Gardens
• PennState Cooperative Extension: Forest Mosses
• ForestHarvest: Text of the Scottish Moss Collection Code Leaflet
• ofBonsai Magazine: Moss Basics

Resources

• Read this Article in Spanish