Moss garden... Japanese-like garden...

Does anyone know of a place in Louiville to get large amounts of moss... uh, gourmet moss? We want to turn a large area under a river birch into a moss garden. Buying a few little plops of moss from an ordinary nursery won't do it. There are mail-order places, but I don't want to go that way if there is a local supplier of such things. Any other oddball gardeners out there?

Let me reccomend a book for you, Moss Gardening by George Schenk. I found it to be one of the best books on the subject. I have created moss gardens in the past, mainly out west near Seattle. I would suggest being very carefull removing moss from a wooded area for two reasons. First if it is a public park or forest it may be illegal, same applies for private land unless you have the owners permission, second most mosses are very sensitive to their micro climate, PH, and light conditions they are living in. In other words they resist being moved. One great place to find nice moss specimens is in an old industrial site abondend factory or warehouse area.. They tend to be very hardy forms and nobody really minds them being removed. Look for very similar light and soil structure that you have and try to gather from there. If you find a variety that seems to work in your spot, you can speed up the spread of the moss by putting some in an old blender with some butter milk and water and spraying the mix on the area you want to cover, note this only works if you know the moss is already exsisting in that area. Keep the area moist for a month or so and you should see some good results. Also remember that not all moss stays green all year, some will go dormant in the hotter parts of the summer. You can find a decent variety called irish moss at local greenhouses, may not be a true moss but nobody would know the difference. I have used it very effectivly to grow between bricks on walkways. Good luck and happy moss gardening.

Thanks for the extremely helpful advice. I discoveredin a gray area between our house and our next-door neighbor... 'gray' as in 'where exactly is the line?' ... there is a rich cache of moss hiding under a large Japanese maple. Our neighbor is a rather dour person... we hardly speak... but I think I could sneak out some moss and it wouldn't be missed. It's not far from where we want to transplant the moss, so the micro-climate, soil, etc. should be okay. I'll let you know... Thanks again!