The Wordsmith's Forge

Today I added the mosses to the antique jar terrarium. See Part 1: Washing, Drainage, and Barrier, Part 2: Mixing Substrate, Part 3: Adding Mosses, Part 4: Dead Wood and Leaf Litter.


This is the starting point for the antique jar terrarium, based on where I left off earlier.




This is the bucket of substrate that I mixed up yesterday. It is now evenly damp and fairly fluffy. I would say that mixing it up somewhat in advance is a good idea because it allows the moisture to distribute through the materials.




Here is a closeup of the substrate. You can see the sand, charcoal bits, tufts of sphagnum moss, gravel, and other bits of things mixed together. It's a fairly decent mix and it handled better than I expected, although I'd probably prefer a finer grain. I'm still curious how well it will perform, particularly in comparison to keeping moss on its original material such as regular soil.




I collected these pillows of dark green moss recently. I got more than I needed, so I have plenty left for other projects, like the frog pot on the patio that definitely needs attention.




This type of dark green moss forms these puffy little pillows and has a very fine, velvety texture. I love the way it looks.




I gathered this shaggy, yellow-green moss today. It covers significant portions of lawn near the old picnic table, back-forty, and east end of the savanna. When it's wet, walking on it feels like walking on luxurious carpet.




This type of moss is very carpetlike with its tiny leaves forming short strings like the yarn in a carpet.




I used this piece of cardboard to improvise a funnel for pouring substrate mix into the jar. An actual funnel would have been helpful, so that's something I can watch for at thrift stores. There's a certain charm in being able to find things cheaply over time, just by keeping an eye out for opportunities.




I rolled up the cardboard and stuck it down the neck of the bottle to serve as a funnel.




Here you can see the substrate in place above the previous layers. I leveled it out with the spatula shown in a previous installment, tamping it down as best I could. An actual tamper would have worked better, but I haven't found a cork to make one yet. Ideally I'd like to have a few of different sizes to work with different types of container.




In this closeup, you can see the layers better. The rock layer for drainage is about 1 inch thick. The coconut coir barrier is about 1/4 inch thick. The substrate layer is about 1 1/2 to 2 inches thick.




I put a piece of the shaggy, yellow-green moss in the middle of the jar using the bent-tip tweezers and pressed it down gently.




This medium view gives a better look at the placement of the shaggy moss.




In the closeup, you can see the texture of the shaggy moss inside the jar.




I placed pillows of the velvety, dark green moss around the edges of the shaggy, yellow-green moss following the curve of the jar. I left a little bare space in back. This part was a bit more challenging, because the moss needed to be pressed down into contact with the substrate, but pressing too hard left grooves in the top of the soft pillow. Again, a tamper would have been very helpful here.




This closeup shows a better view of the layers with the mosses on top. The velvety moss is about an inch thick, while the shaggy moss is a bit shallower.




Here you can see how the mosses form a kind of carpet in the jar. I used the yellow-green moss in the middle and the darker green moss around the edge to create the effect of a sunbeam in the center. I want to make a miniature park bench to put in the middle there.




A top view looks down the neck of the jar.




In this closeup, you can see the bare spot in back. I want to put some leaf litter there which is not so broken down and still has visible bits of leaf in it. This will provide a place to replenish the leaf littler and feed the microfauna, without covering the moss. Today the leaf litter was all wet, which makes it hard to find the layer of small dry fragments, so I'll have to wait.




The pillows of dark green moss make an attractive border around the carpet of yellow-green moss.




Here is the back view of the terrarium at its current stage of development.




Here is a front view of the terrarium showing the larger pillows of dark green moss. This already looks quite inviting, so I'm pleased with it. :D




While I was working on the terrarium, a pair of house finches came to the fly-through feeder, and I got a decent picture of them.