Moss magic

Moss softens hard edges and brings a natural ease and permanence wherever it colonises, but tends to be ignored. Tilly Ware thinks it’s time to invite it in

- Tilly Ware

MOSSES, like ferns, are unsung heroes. Quiet and unassuming, they soften difficult corners and provide a soothing air of permanence. Cracks, crevices, and tree bark are all perfect microclimates for the spores to settle, but they can be persuaded to live happily under shrubs or roses, intermingled with other creeping groundcover and as part of a shady woodland border. They don’t always need grooming to be gorgeous. Kazuyuki Ishihara’s Chelsea creations are immaculate, but it was the back wall of his Green Switch garden that sang out in 2019: a joyful, messy waterfall of mosses tumbling with hazel saplings, polypody ferns, and Lamprocapnos spectabilis Alba. No tweezers required.

At Windy Hall, on the shores of Lake Windermere, scientists David Kinsman and Diane Hewitt excel at naturalistic mossy beauty. They arrived in 1973 to find their steeply sloping four acres smothered with rubbish that had to be borrowed of the site. The resulting compacted path, curving up between native birch and cherry trees behind the house, then became a flourishing moss garden. Existing mounds of Polytrichum formosum were encouraged to spread and the ground was kept clear of competition. Canopies were lifted to emphasize the contrast between the smooth trunk and rumpled emerald carpet. ‘We let it tell us how to manage it,’ says Diane, ‘we simply weed out a few foxgloves and keep ivy at bay.’