Dale Hodgins wrote:

Jocelyn Campbell wrote:Want. (But probably too dry for this in Montana.)

Pic from FaceBook.

On a recent pruning job, I worked on fruit trees that had thick mats of moss, ferns and lichen growing together. When pulled from the tree, it comes with some dead bark attached. It seems like an easy plant community to transplant to baskets or pots. This is a similar plant community to the ones shown in your photo of the river, but the fruit trees are in drier, brighter places. They get dry as a chip in the summer sun on trees surrounded by suburban lawns. This mix might work as a bath mat or in a basket in a well lit bathroom. I will gather a box of it and mail it to the farm if you like. The postage is my donation to the cause. Stuff growing on apple might be a good choice since you will find it easy to obtain more more apple bark for further propagation.

I'm going to experiment with one inch thick gabion mats with a substrate of coarse sand and pea gravel, for grow your own mats and wall hangings.

Check out this thread about using moss and ferns in a living bathroom. --- http://www.permies.com/t/32710/green-building/Dale-living-bathroom#254831

This roof has been covered in a thick layer of moss for decades. --- http://www.permies.com/t/29729/green-building/Dale-year-green-roof

My gabion pebble wall system is here --- http://www.permies.com/t/12592/green-building/Dry-Stone-Pebble-Wall-Stone

I am considering try some of this.Maybe I can get the jump on a niche market for my area.I could round up and start with local mosses and branch out from here.

Contact local loggers and other tree people and those involved in excavation and land clearing. Bald cypress and live oak are trees that often support a variety of other growth. Wild areas that are under development are a great source.

I had the job of demolishing a cottage that sat on a one acre mound of rock that was to be quarried. The rock was covered in thick mats of little flowers,mixed succulents, moss and ferns that took centuries to develop. I called a few garden clubs and they skinned the area down to bare rock. One public garden was being expanded at that time and they used the mats on rock that had been stripped bare by livestock in the 1800s.

That's a great story, Dale. It's unusual to have someone in the demolition field with a sensitivity for plants. They are lucky to have you up in Victoria.

Julia Winter wrote:That's a great story, Dale. It's unusual to have someone in the demolition field with a sensitivity for plants. They are lucky to have you up in Victoria.

Thank you Julia. My customers are lucky to have me. Others in waste management --- not so much. I have a nasty habit of pointing my camera at questionable environmental practices.

Most people who live near a large town can get plants, soil, building materials, firewood and other resources from the waste stream. The hand demolition guys either have it or know where you can get it. We are all in competition but those of us who recycle the buildings cooperate. We share customers and laborers regularly.

Some companies come in with excavators to crush everything and toss it in the dump. They are the enemy but I have two that I work with sometimes. Some buildings don't contain enough resources to warrant the labor cost of hand demolition. I go into these ahead of the machine. I usually secure the rights to the landscape.

The house moving company that I work with is a very good corporate citizen. They always let me get good plants out before the heavy machines arrive. I'm free to sell portions of the building that must be removed. I've had many leads for little jobs and for material sales from them. On most jobs there is some firewood produced. The boss and crew have first dibs before I give any to others. The lifting equipment has many hoses filled with hydraulic fluid that can drip on the ground or come squirting out if some error is made. They started using vegetable oil long before it became a legal requirement. Some really nice plants came out of this job.--- http://www.permies.com/t/15256/green-building/MOVING-COLWOOD-PUB-Cut-pieces

DYI graffiti moss

While I was on a hike this summer I came across a rock covered in moss. I thought it'd be cool to pluck a checkerboard out and get a woodchip/pebble game going.

Not so artistic but my goal is to make a moss back yard for my wife's mother.  The yard is between the house on the west and the back fence and overhanging trees on the east.  So it gets about 1 hour of sun at noon. It is almost all clay sand that stays fairly evenly moist. All I am doing is watering it in the summer and blowing the leaves off of it. That's the blower in the pictures.

paul wheaton wrote:

That's nice but I don't think it's moss art. It looks like some type of small leaf shrub.