Moss, The Practical Way To Landscape

Moss, The Practical Way To Landscape

Mosses can be an attractive and a lovely addition to many kinds of gardens. These soft, lush plants tend to love both shade and moisture. Aesthetically, the gentle curving mounds of moss are used to lend an air of quiet calm and longevity to garden landscapes. In terms of placement, mosses flourish best on porous surfaces that retain water, such as wood, concrete and brick. Some people create entire gardens focused on moss, while others use it as an accent. One fascinating new use for moss is as a component in green roofs. Each variety of moss has particular strengths and advantages. Here are three of the most popular varieties.

Peat moss is an organic, all-natural soil conditioner that helps increase a soil’s capacity to retain water and nutrients. Peat moss is most frequently used in soils that contain too much sand or are too tightly compacted. Because of its spongy substance, it helps improve aeration and drainage.

Aquarium moss plays several important roles in an aquarium ecosystem. Many types of fish find the delicate fronds of moss to be an appealing place to lay eggs. Once the eggs hatch, the small fish can use the moss both as a hiding place and as a source of food. Aquarium moss can also play an important aesthetic role by blurring the hard edges of rocks to create a smooth, unified underwater landscape.

Fern moss is a hardy and versatile species. It can grow on a wide range of surfaces, including soil and rock. Once it has established itself it can tolerate periods of dryness. Fern moss has a variety of uses. Live moss is beautiful and inviting enough to be grown as a decorative accent in a flower garden. It is also strong enough to withstand foot traffic as a moss la

How To Care For Perennials

How To Care For Perennials

Why Divide Perennials?

Gardeners love perennials because they grow so easily. These offer beauty at an inexpensive price. However, they multiply quickly and can grow out of control, clumping and may even taking over other planted areas. To prevent this from happening, there comes a time when you must divide perennials in your garden. If you don’t divide these, they will eventually look ill kept. Even so, there are also other reasons why you want to eventually separate them.


Avoid Holes

Perennials grow very quickly and they usually begin to clump together. When these aren’t divided every three to four years, then spots of these clumps often die out, leaving gaping holes.

Protect from Fungal Disease

Large clumps of perennial roots are susceptible to insect infestations and fungal infections.


When you don’t divide perennials and they multiply, these become overcrowded and have fewer or smaller flowers than those that are well spaced.


If you replant in different areas, then you control the plants, which is especially important when the plants are aggressive and tend to overwhelm neighboring plants.


More Plants

Besides, when you divide the perennials you create more plants of the same variety. This offers an inexpensive way of adding new plants to other areas of the garden.


When to Dig Up and Separate

Many gardeners ask themselves when to dig up and separate perennials. Actually, these are very hardy plans so you can dig them up to replant in different areas any time from Spring to Fall, however, there are two seasons that are best for doing this; spring and fall. These seasons are cooler than the summer, so the weather and soil conditions are less stressful to the plant. Just be sure to divide them when the plants are large enough.

Bottom Line

Perennials are beautiful and very easy to grow. However, they do take some maintenance and you do need to dig them up and separate them every couple of years. This is an easy process, but one you should do in the cooler months of spring or fall. Remember, separating allows you to plant small clumps of plants in different areas of the garden.