First of all thank you for all of your interest and support in my decision to not only continue this little space, but to introduce some new faces. I hope to bring on 3 new contributors and have plans to announce them by the end of next week. If you know of anyone who would make a contributor, please let them know. There is still time.
I am really thrilled and think it will be fun for all of us who walk the woods (or beach or wherever) with magnifying glasses in our pockets.
Secondly, we love moss around here?
Do you?
Who wouldn't. There is just something magical about a soft green carpet under your feet. On nature walks, many of us might look up to the tops of trees. Or at eye level. But on your next nature walk, make sure to walk very slowly and low to the ground.
Otherwise you might miss some of the most amazing moss you've ever seen.
One of my oldest boys is obsessed with moss. His love of all things low and green began when he started building little worlds for his Star Wars Action figures. We began carefully collecting moss from our nature walks for him to transplant in a terrarium.
And it was love at first sight. He says moss makes him happy. Me too, buddy!
While doing some research on mosses, we came across this great website page.
Interesting things we learned about moss:
- Moss most always grows on the North side of trees and buildings (in N. America) because those areas do not get much sunlight.
- Mosses are extremely sensitive to air pollution.
- Mosses appeared around 350 million years ago, way before the dinosaurs and flying insects.
- The study of moss is called bryology.
We started a moss garden a few weeks ago in an area near our herb garden right under the water spout. Our local nursery had a few moss plants and we're collecting samples on our nature outings to transplant as well. It stays quite wet, but the moss is loving it.
Curiously two of the moss plants we purchased...scottish moss and irish moss bloomed this week. Which means they are not moss at all. Go figure. They still look pretty cool in a star wars setting.
More on how to start a moss garden in the next post.
