Moss gardens (balcony)

I had to cat proof my balcony, and for that, I filled containers with cement and put a rod into them. They are solid 3/4 and had about 10 cm air space.

I initially put stones in them, but they always filled up with rain water and were a breeding ground for algae and mosquitoes.

They used to look like this:

Then, I decided to do something more useful and less labour intensive with them.

I put lots of leftover hydro substrate in them, mostly LECA, lava rock, pumice, zeolith, and so on, as well as a small net cup as filter, to pump out the water in case it's needed.

Most were left as is, with no organic layer on top.

Then, I went outside and collected all different kinds of mosses I could find. Only small patches of course, both for sustainability and the sake of the experiment.

The goal is to establish a living, organic top surface, and a very airy moist environment below with lots of air gaps, where puddled up water from below gets drawn up and evaporates.

All pots do have different environments. Some are in bright sun all day, some very shaded. Some get fertilizer leeched in from flower pots above, some are very nutrient poor.

This means, quite a lot of species lost the "natural" selection game and got outcompeted or died, while others thrive in this environment and cover big areas.

They are all getting drained from time to time to prevent nutrient buildup, or in case the cement below leeches out. In dry times, they get a small shower with RO water, especially my bog pots.

How they look now, after about a year

Here's the first one. Very bright light and quite nutrient dense. 100% inorganic substrate.
I put a bit of osmocote in it, and it stays relatively dry.

There are lots if "weeds"/ grasses in it, which have formed a dense sheet of rhizomes and roots. I trim the grass from time to time.

Second one. 100% inorganic substrate, very bright, very nutrient poor.

I put some "random" moss, as well as living sphagnum in it. There's also a sarracenia in there, but it's not looking very happy.

My goal was to simulate the natural formation of bogs. In theory, the sphagnum moss will acidify the environment extremely, which makes it inhospitable for most other mosses and plants.

Initially, the random moss got a great jump start from the decomposing other mosses around, releasing nutrients. It covered most of it.

But it seems like, due to the constant flooding and lack of nutrients, that the sphagnum now strikes back and takes its place.

The third one is the exact same as the one before, but a bit drier maybe.

It took lots of living sphagnum to decompose itself and turn the habitat livable for other living sphagnum. I also put a sarracenia in there last year, but it sadly died. There's also a hand full of (used) peat on top to give the spagnum a jump start.

Then, the fourth one. This one is very shaded and nutrient rich. It gets lots of synthetic fertiliser by surrounding plants leaching into it.

It's very similar to a forest environment.

Here's my newest one. It has got a base layer of lava rock, followed by coco coir, and finished with some used peat I got from a fellow gardener. It's somewhat flooded most of the time and is a 100% bog environment (very bright, acidic, nutrient poor).

I put the sphagnum and sarracenia into it about two months ago, and they're already thriving!

Then, there's my Drosera binata. Peat as substrate, and some freshly planted sphagnum as top layer.

And the final one. Shallow bowl, filled with a few cm of LECA, nothing else, and quite a lot of living sphagnum. There's a venus flytrap and a Drosera rotundifolia in it, as well as some seeds (either weeds, or carnivorous plants).

After that one or two years, the moss garden transformed my "sterile" balcony into an oasis for life. It's like living in a forest!

There are SO many critters in there. Beetles, arthropods, springtails, nematodes, snails, you name it.

Indoor Sphagnum cultivation

I'm also growing some sphagnum indoors for further use.

The outdoor stuff in the bog containers is mainly for habitat formation and contaminated with weeds and bugs.

Right now, the amount harvested is insufficient. I mostly use it for making even more sphagnum 😅 You can easily propagate it by sprinkling small chunks on other substrate.

It took a while for me to get the hang of it. I've killed lots if it, mostly by overfertilizing or letting it dry out too much.

But now, it grows very fast and I already got my first harvest.

Some of it uses a few cm of LECA as substrate, and others have peat as base layer. I noticed that peat works way better, mostly due to the inherent low pH and nutrient buffering capabilities.

I'm also testing coco coir as a substitute for peat right now.

The moss is in plastic deli containers without drainage inside my grow tent. I'm growing weed there, and the boxes get lots of very bright light because of that.

They are getting flooded regularly and are then allowed to dry out a bit. Sometimes, I add a splash of hydroponic fertilizer to them when flooded. This makes it grow extremely quickly.

As soon as I notice the moss is getting too dark green, I flush it and stop fertilizing for a while. If I don't do this, it will get nutrient burn as soon as it dries out a bit and die.

Here you can see different shades of green:

My goal is to get regular big amounts for harvest. I wanna use it as a sustainable replacement for peat, because many carnivorous plants NEED those specific conditions to survive.

It's also very decay resistant and holds on to water like a sponge. I could use it for propagation, e.g. cuttings or air layering. It has so many uses!

I also have some growing in front of my window in a glass vase. It started with a few cm of LECA and now colonized the whole jar. I use it in this case as substrate for my Nepenthes and Drosera.