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Hats off to moss
Both mosses in this dish are on our shelves. Mood moss, also sold as rock cap moss, makes the mounded colonies. Cushion moss, also sold as pillow moss, rounds them out. Sold from a quarter of a square foot, cut the week you order.
See live moss for containers and dish gardens · every species we supply
It’s really too bad the Royal Wedding is behind us; no doubt this moss dish garden would have morphed into a fashionable hat for the occasion. Well, there’s always Ascot, another UK occasion to wear the height of fashion. Indeed, moss is the height of fashion; I can imagine milliners making hats from moss next season, showing up in the middle of Royal circles.
Why wait, right? We can have moss making a fashion statement in our gardens right now.
While this creation looks like a Royal hat sitting on a hatstand, it’s actually a gorgeous pedestal dish garden with pottery made by Marsha Owen, and filled with plants, unmistakably by the hand of David Spain.
David Spain has collaborated with Marsha Owen on many designs, but he says, “This dish has to be her best. Its graceful pedestal and shallow bowl, with an undulating rim, gets my heart racing. The generous ceramic wave is also the perfect form for buxom moss colonies.”
David Spain’s latest design is filled with a beautiful mixed colony of Dicranum scoparium and Plagiomnium cuspidatum, nestled next to an Ebony spleenwort (Asplenium platyneuron) and a tuft of dwarf mondo grass (Ophiopogon japonicus) on either side (only one tuft shown in this photo.) “I rounded out the voluptuous tableau with Leucobryum glaucum and a heavy sporophyte colony of Dicranum scoparium,” says David Spain. A colony throwing that many sporophytes is one that has settled in: moss only fruits when it is comfortable.
The choice of mosses and other plants David includes in his designs, skillfully matches the lines and style of each individual dish; David has an eye for perfect plant placement.
This dish garden is an example of what has earned him the reputation of, not only a moss expert, pairing mosses and other plants that work well together, but as a gifted and talented designer who uses moss as his medium. Other artists work in clay, or metal, or mosaic, David Spain works in moss.
My hat goes off to David and Marsha for another excellent collaboration for a unique design, ready to be the centerpiece for any occasion.
Both mosses in this dish are sold from a quarter of a square foot.