Collecting mosses

[Rabbit229]

I'm considering collecting different mosses from my garden. Will they grow in my terrarium? If so is they any types of species I should be looking out for.

New tank set up 75-80 and high humidity. I'm wanting to blend the moss with dry sphagnum moss and paint it on my background and logs

 

[zozo]

Mosses are very addaptable and resilient and even can change appearance if growing in different conditions that's what makes some difficult to identify. I scratched mosses from the pavement forming a low dense cussion in my garden and grew it on in an little container on a much richer substrate with much more direct light and after a while it started growing erect and changed appearance completely. There are mosses that like to grow on wood other on rock, if you see mosses growing on rocks or stones try to determine what kind of rock it is, some mosses like and grow for example on concrete or cement or substartes containing a lot of lime. Doesn't mean it will not grow somewhere else, but most like will look different if growing in different conditions.

What it generaly doesn't like is changing conditions abruptly and it could die off, or looking like it is dying off and still come back after a long time (months) in a slightly different form. Or since mosses can be sporophytic so what you collect also can contain spores from other sp. that will develop if conditons are met and take over.. That's how they even can sneak in with other plants..

Just collect what ever you can find and throw all in the blender and see what it will turn into.

Playing with mosses always is full of surprices.. It's simply wonderful..

 

[Rabbit229]

Thanks zozo I hope it takes to expanding foam as that's the background of my tank.
Is they another substance I could blend it with to make it sticky. I believe yoghurt will go mouldy and start to smell in my tank!

So bright lights for long periods will benefit the terrarium if constantly moist

 

[zozo]

I never tried the yoghurt recipe, but it seems to work pretty well.. A constant climate is most important with mosses.. For the rest it is hard to kill it periode.. There are bags dried mosses for sale in terrarium shops, if this is put in a constant moist climate it comes back to life. Bright light definitively makes it grow faster. Just make sure it doesn't get to warm with the lamps heat..

 

[Rabbit229]

Well I never new that! Garden centre it is then.

Gutted I've just spent £15 for 50g of dried moss from a frog shop online