GREEN CARPET AFFAIR

MANY HOMEOWNERS VIEW MOSS AS A PESKY NUISANCE, BUT ONE RETIRED PROFESSOR IN WISCONSIN HAS MADE IT HIS MUSE.

- TERESA WOODARD

Dale Sievert sits on a retaining wall made of repurposed railroad ties. Behind him, a gently inclined stone staircase with a rustic wooden railing climbs past terraced pocket gardens—a bog, a stumpery, and perennial beds of ferns, horsetail, and meadow rue.

Dale Sievert is no stranger to awe-inspiring gardens. On visits to more than 100 countries, he has seen Kyoto's famous temple gardens in Japan and Tivoli's Villa d'Este in Italy. Yet it was a drive in 2005 to an obscure location just 200 miles from his home that most changed his life. “I almost didn't take the trip,” the retired economics professor says. “It ended up being the most important garden trip in my life.”

The destination was Foxfire Gardens in Marshfield, Wisconsin, where a Japanese garden caught his eye. “It had a small moss garden,” he says, “maybe only 8 feet by 15 feet, under some trees. Some dappled sunlight came through and hit brightly on a few spots. It absolutely floored me.”

Today, he experiences the same sense of wonder in his own Waukesha, Wisconsin, backyard—a lush masterpiece created over two decades. Here, mosses carpet earth mounds, line stream banks, fill hundreds of containers and envelop even more stones. “After a rain, moss is irresistible,” he says, “especially with a little backlighting.”