Mossy Lawn

Walking up the lane today I was once more struck by the beauty of the moss growing on the dry stone walls, the number of different habits, textures and colours there are in a plant that many gardeners seem to spend years trying to eradicate from their gardens and especially their lawns.

Moss can tolerate periods of drought quite well, doesn't need mowing and is springy and soft to walk on. Having a quick google on the web I stumbled across this quote "The 19th century garden writer, James Shirley Hibberd, advised that moss was essential for inclusion in the lawn so as not to bruise the elbows when rolling on the grass!"

I'm hankering after a moss garden though - I remember seeing a gardening programme on Channel 4 years ago which featured a Japanese moss garden - it was an incredibly tranquil space. I looked an the internet to find out more about moss gardening (hence finding the above quote) and discovered that the way to propagate moss is to scrape it into a blender (only one site recommended using an old blender!) and blitzing it up with water and cheap beer or buttermilk and pouring it over the site where you want it to grow or painting it on with a brush. How on earth do people find out these things?

Okay how many people got the Discworld reference? (Mossy Lawn is a doctor in Ankh-Morpork!)