Tuff stone or trass for optimum moss growth?

[Henri]

A while ago I helped a friend with his garden where we used tuff stones to create a wall. When I last week visited them, I was blown away by the amount of moss growing on these stones! Amazing! I want that too!!

Tuff is vulcanic. Tuff stones are quite pricy so in my case unsuitable as foundation. But trass is grinded tuff so that would make excellent ballast.

Now I’m looking for ways to bond trass. In my experience adding cement does not increase moss growth. Moss likes sour soul and cement is chalcy, not sour.

Any ideas which way to proceed..? Does this all make sense?

 

[Paul M]

I must admit to not having heard of tuff or trass!

 

[dunnyrail]

A while ago I helped a friend with his garden where we used tuff stones to create a wall. When I last week visited them, I was blown away by the amount of moss growing on these stones! Amazing! I want that too!!

Tuff is vulcanic. Tuff stones are quite pricy so in my case unsuitable as foundation. But trass is grinded tuff so that would make excellent ballast.

Now I’m looking for ways to bond trass. In my experience adding cement does not increase moss growth. Moss likes sour soul and cement is chalcy, not sour.

Any ideas which way to proceed..? Does this all make sense?

One of the keys is to make any cement with rain water, domestic water contains stuff that mosses do not like. You could use rowlands mix which is 2 parts sharpe sand, 2 parts peat (or fine sifted substitute) 1 part cement made up with rainwater from a butt. Will not be as solid as concrete but will work well enough. Also shade helps moss as does a small addition of loose sand. You could possibly put a temporary shade enhancer like some old wood till a decent amount of moss is created, if it dries up too much in full sun a small spray with rainwater should freshen it up again. This moss has grown on Postcrete in an area that gets hardly any sun.

This is I think the sort of stone you are talking about, salvaged from a garden in Luton when I lived there.Followed me to Hemel and here when I moved.

Another option would be to get the soft building blocks and distress them with a saw and chip lumps out. Left in a damp shaded part of your property they would soon get covered in moss.

 

[Henri]

Yes I'm aware of Rowlands mix, I used it on both my previous layouts. As I made several batches after each other, the quality was not equal over the batches. Some parts did very well while others fell apart after the first night frost.

You added some good information there, thanks. In stead of using sand I 'd like to experiment with trass, which can also make excellent ballast.


Tuff stones


Trass