Every spring my inbox is full of press releases touting miracle garden products. Mostly, they promise me the perfect green lawn. These often include advice and concoctions designed to get rid of moss. I ignore them. Because this ancient plant, with its deep, mesmerising green colouring and soft and spongy texture, is not doing any harm at all.
On the contrary, it helps stabilise soil health, retain moisture, capture carbon; ticking multiple eco-boxes in one go. And, of course, it looks very beautiful. If I had my way, I’d have a lawn made entirely from moss. I also love it on our roof and between the cobbles outside our back door — my boyfriend would rather take the power washer to it but, thankfully, the garden is my domain.
Many of my garden design clients are starting to appreciate its benefits too, particularly those in urban areas with low light levels and limited space. One such client, who has a terrier that likes to dig everything up, has asked for a moss-only garden. She lives in a tall town house in Notting Hill. The garden is small and rather shaded. Moss could be the perfect solution — and I have it on strict authority that the dog won’t disturb it, either.
Mosses are bryophytes, the same plant group as liverworts — the oldest land plant in existence — and hornworts. According to the British Bryological Society, there are 1,098 species of bryophyte in Britain and Ireland, which represents around 58 per cent of the total European flora.
Aberdeen-based Highland Moss, founded in 2020, is one of the only British businesses selling UK grown moss. Run by partners Craig Troup and Pamela Adamiec, the company has been involved in RHS Chelsea Flower Show every year since. It also sells to London Zoo; where some of the resident birds use it for making their nests or as food.
Highland Moss has deals with local landowners, often in instances where trees are being felled and areas of moss would otherwise be disturbed or lost. In order to transport the moss, the team lift it from the floor, clean it up and remove pine needles that have dropped into it. Wrapping the moss in layers of waxed paper, they send it out for landscaping projects on palettes with very light recycled cardboard around it. For a more modest project, you can buy patches of moss to encourage its development in a small space or even a terrarium.
The Japanese made the moss garden an art form, from Saikei — miniature landscapes on trays — to entire moss gardens covering thousands of square metres and featuring hundreds of different moss varieties. As Ulrica Nordström explains in From Forest to Garden: A Guide to the Hidden World of Moss, the species was venerated by Japanese poets and Zen Buddhist monks writing thousands of years ago.
Nordström also explores the multitude of historical uses for moss, including in building insulation, Chinese medicine, braid baskets and ropes, mattresses, and, thanks to its highly absorbent qualities, it preceded cotton as a compress to treat wounds in early 20th-century wars. It has even been used in nappies.
And then there is its keystone contribution to natural environments. Desert ecologist Dr David Eldridge, from the School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of New South Wales, was the lead author of a study on mosses published last year.
Titled “The global contribution of soil mosses to ecosystem services”, the study looks at moss and its growing habits in 123 different ecosystems, from the rainforests to barren polar landscapes and deserts. It estimates that moss covers more than 9mn sq km — a size comparable to Canada or China.
“What we show in our research is that where you have mosses you have a greater level of soil health, such as more carbon and more nitrogen,” says Eldridge. “So they’re helping to prime the soil for the return of trees, shrubs and grasses that eventually end up getting outcompeted in the process. So they’re the first guys that get in there and fix things up and then first to leave.”
It’s these attributes that make mosses extremely useful in a garden setting too. “Unlike ordinary, vascular plants, mosses don’t have the necessary plumbing — xylem and phloem — that plants use to get water and nutrients from the roots.
“That means that mosses have to grow very close to the substrate, which keeps them small. So, mosses derive a lot of their nutrition both from the soil but also from the air. Mosses also have amazing features that allow them to survive when things are dry.”
They are perfect “resurrection plants”, he says. “You can take a moss that’s been dry for many many years and rehydrate it, and it will come to life.”
Eldridge is confident that mosses could play a bigger role in our gardens, often as a companion to other plants. For her book, Nordström takes a tour of Windy Hall in Cumbria, a garden where moss, ferns and rhododendrons enjoy the humid and rainy climate.
If you’re not blessed with your own moss source, there is a need to be cautious of where you are getting it from. Troup is conscientious about where he collects his, taking advice from experts on identifying species that he comes across. “We know that we aren’t picking any rare or endangered species; normally the rare ones are in some cliff face or in a particular part of the Cairngorms. In the future we’d like to find some of these and have an agreement to propagate or grow them so they don’t go extinct.”
It is also important to point out that historically peat moss has been exploited by the horticultural industry; Troup is quick to explain that he is careful not to disturb or remove any peat in his work, and instead would like to be involved in the restoration of peat bogs in the future, where moss plays a key role.
Eldridge also urges caution if looking for your own in the wild. “If you remove a moss-covered rock from its natural environment and place it in your garden, [it won’t] be as vigorous as [it was] in a wild situation.” Despite being great resurrection plants, mosses — like all plants — do need the right conditions to thrive.
“This is because mosses have a strong association with particular micro environments. They might do really well in one part of the garden, but a few metres away where light conditions and temperature are different, then they won’t do as well.”
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