Live sphagnum moss

[Syble]

Live Sphagnum Moss is truly handy and beautiful stuff. I keep it around primarily for rooting stock, i used to have aweful luck with cuttings, but now that i do them in the live sphagnum i get almost 100% success rate. It makes a nice addition to soil recipies (but keep in mind what your growing as it can overgrow some slower CPs), makes an attractive top dressing, and as a topdressing is a good indication on pot health.
Sib

[Devon]

gotta start a big bucket of this stuff... I'm always low on it. and that is defiently a great variety of spgagnum there! beautiful colours!

[Syble]

thanks, I grow it in a big round glass tube/vase, the thing is like 7" in diameter and about 7" tall. I'm not sure how i got so many different varieties though... I've often thought about trying to separate them and grow a bunch of different batches. I do have others out in my bog, but they are the typical dense green mounding ones. Maybe I'll take small amounts of each of these this spring and add them to the bog and see if they can handle our colder climate aswell.
thanks
Sib

[Syble]

lol it could be almost anything, the original dried material i used came as bits and peices from a ton of different places.

[vraev]

very very nice! I wouldn't be soo sure if those are all different types. The same species of sphagnum / any moss can have a different growth habit depending on the conditions in the microenvironment. I find that the same live LFS in a pot of nepenthes can have different color...ranging from blond to green to red.

[Syble]

lol, i figured it might be something like that but they have all been growing in there for over a year now. its a big 7"x7" cylindrical vase, there's a loose plastic lid and its directly under grow lights. I figure its the lights, but it seams to grow alot looser then the stuff in the bogs.
Sib

[montanaguy29]

Hey everyone, I just joined a couple days ago actually and I am trying to grow some of my sphagnum moss as well. I have collected rain water in as many different containers as possible and added it to the small plastic bin with some of the live moss already in it. The story about how it all started is actually very odd. I grow orchids of a few different varieties and they all were potted in moss just until about 5 months ago in the spring when I ordered some prime agra and actually repotted all of the orchids in it, but until that time, I had them all in sphagnum moss I got at lowe's years ago and so I use a dilute fertilizer for the orchids every single time I mist and water them. One day I was watering as usual and I had all my orchids in a bg 75 gallon tank to keep humidity in and most other things out, but I noticed little green stems in alot of the moss so I inspected more and alot of pots had these little things in them. I took the top most pieces which were a combination of long fiber sphagnum moss and chilean blonde long fiber sphagnum moss that had previously been dried and put the small green sprouts in some ziploc bags with a bit of collected rain water and they grew very long and thin. I now have them pretty long but they are not very branched, just long thin stems but definitely sphagnum mossjust sitting in rain water. I did notice that some pieces of the other kinds of moss after being wetted and put in the rain water seemed to germinate spores more rapidly and in very high numbers. I had one tiny piece which was a branch from the chilean blonde sphagnum moss that grew tiny sphagnum moss all over it and it looks like tiny pieces of grass but it seems rain water germinates spores very rapidly and easily in higher number than regular distilled water. I have them in bags of rain water that get a few hours of direct sun every day and some live moss in a covered plastic bin and they seem to be growing steadily.

[hermes]

Syble, that is magnificent moss you've got there.

Based upon your recommendations, I've started a closed container with a handful of live moss as a starter, and I hope to get enough soon to do nepenthes clippings.

-Hermes.