David & Patricia Spain Moss Garden

We began our garden with the intent to have

moss as the dominant feature. Giving moss

center stage and having a place for us to ex-

periment with different techniques. We broke

ground in our overgrown wooded side yard in

2010 and have continued to expand the march

of the mosses ever since. Moss gardens nor-

mally take many years to mature and ours is

still very young by comparison, but by utiliz-

ing different watering techniques we have cov-

ered more ground in the past 5 years than you

would expect. Our other plantings are limited

and selected to compliment the characteristics

of moss, native woodland plants are well suit-

ed but best of all are the hostas. If you’re

shade gardening anywhere in the United

States, then moss may very well be the plant to

consider for an evergreen appeal that plays so

well under your shade plants or hostas!

David and Patricia Spain, Raleigh, NC

My Visit: David Teager Garnet Valley, PA

On a day that was, as you will know from other accounts,

blisteringly hot, the property of David Spain offered a seri-

ous dose of cool. Not only cool, as in “feel the temperature

drop when I step into the shade,” but cool, as in, well, emoti-

con 8-) cool.

From the moment the visitors arrived, David was happily

offering explanation and instruction about the creation of

his unique garden (and I do not use that qualifier lightly).

This is a garden where the focus is not on what springs out

of the ground, but on the ground itself; wherever it is possi-

ble, and in some places where it seems nigh unto impossible, the Spain property is

coated in moss, liberally, and often literally, coated in moss.

Even in the sunny space at the top of the driveway, David attempts to grow a lawn of

moss. His explanation for such an endeavor is two-fold. He is assured that there are

indeed moss species that persist and even thrive in such conditions, and he takes it as a

personal challenge to prove it. In fact, his first experience in creating a moss lawn was

a challenge from his future father-in-law to do just that, on a property where shade in-

hibited the success of a “proper” sod lawn. He succeeded, and what had been a fatherly

challenge became a business endeavor-Moss

and Stone Gardens. The success of this effort

has led to national attention from the likes of

Martha Stewart and Southern Living maga-

zine.

The sheets of slightly crispy moss along the

street were a mere curiosity, though, com-

pared to the deluxe emerald carpet growing in

the forest sloping down along the property.

Here, the moss beckons to be touched. It

sucks the heat and the sound out of the air. It

softens the harsh mid-day light that breaks

through the canopy of loblolly pine and tulip poplar, bathing every surface in a sooth-

ing green light. It fully envelops a large earthen mound, some three meters in diameter

and one meter high. It covers stones in the creek beds, and inhabits the “Moss Rocks!”

ceramic planters that are one of the business’s more portable offerings. Here it spreads

into sheets, and there it pulls itself into little tufts which appear to be living rocks, each

according to the growing habits of the dozen or more moss species selections. (For

those of you interested in learning more about

moss growth, do visit their website:

www.mossandstonegardens.com). Lower

parts of the property (not on tour) are given

over to research and production plots, where

they trial mosses harvested from different

populations, and grow the best for use in the

landscape.

While the order of the day was ostensibly a

tour of hosta gardens, here the hostas are

merely featured ornaments, complementing

the water features, stone statues, and mono-

liths. One larger pair of green-tinged stone

Edge of Moss Garden

Dry river bed

monoliths, imported from a family farm else-

where in the state, dominate a moss lawn

nearer the house. The water features, actual-

ly three independent running streams—unify

the display as the water cascades along the

gentle slope. In many places, hostas punctu-

ate the moss beside the flowing water, and in

several memorable installations, the hostas

flourish as planted directly in the

streambeds. Cultivars were not identified,

but the unmistakeable Hosta ‘Blue Mouse

Ears’ served as a perfect foil to the moss and

stone in several locations.

The moss gardens, naturally, drew the great-

est interest from touring conventioneers,

with more than a few (myself included) vow-

ing to establish or encourage larger patches

in our own landscapes. Offering stark con-

trast, however, the striking assembly of Caro-

lina coast driftwood along the driveway also

stopped many folks on arrival for an unusu-

al photo opportunity. Like a fantastic

display of alien fossils, they rested on a

carpet, not of moss, but on a veneer of

pine needles (perhaps collected while

grooming the mosses nearby). Passing

in front of the house toward the moss

display took visitors across a beautiful

bed of colored river stones, set on edge

and serving to direct water into a sunny

swale garden.

The other visitors and I were clearly

moved by the serenity of this intimate

garden space.

Hosta in Water

Dri�wood by Driveway

Blue Mouse Ears