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Janet · 27-02-2016, 02:19 PM posted to uk.rec.gardening

In article ,
says...

On Sat, 27 Feb 2016 11:50:28 +0000, "Dan S. MacAbre"
wrote:

The chap who does my garden treated the lawn to kill the moss last
year. Now there is a bald patch. I preferred the moss!

Steve

Over the last few years, since I've tried to keep the moss away
completely, I've sort of noticed that over winter, there is certainly
more bare soil. I find that the patches soon grow over, though. Less of
a pain than moss, IMHO.

Have you ever tried to grow moss? In my previous house we had a pond
surrounded by lots of sandstone rocks. I spent years trying to get
moss to grow on the rocks but failed.

In my last garden I grew a woodland moss walk (by using glyphosate to
eliminate competing grasses; the moss spread by itself).

In this one, my husband built drystone walls with raw (blonde)
sandstone straight from the quarry; when freshly cut, it was very bright
yellow. Nicely weathered to dappled grey now.

I scraped lichen from rocks and collected moss, whizzed them up in
the food processor, mixed them with yoghurt, sheep muck and rainwater
into a creamy wet slurry and slapped it liberally all over the stone
with a paintbrush. The sunny side of the stone is now growing lots of
lichen circles and the shade side is growing moss.

Both gardens are rural west Scotland with high rainfall and no air
pollution (weathered stones and bark eventually get covered in lichens
and mosses; I've just speeded up the process). If you're in a dry or
high air pollution area you may find it harder.

Janet