I have a beautiful terrarium with a lift off lid that I originally intended for growing mushrooms. Well, it wasn’t quite big enough for that, so I put some plants I was rooting out inside. The plants grew and bumped into the top and looked crowded, so I started thinking about what else I could do with the container, a mossarium maybe? Mossariums are terrariums with a variety of mosses as the focal feature of the arrangement. Some have a few plants as well, but it is mostly moss. I have a fantastically gnarled root ball that I thought would make a fantastic hardscape for the moss. I soaked it in RO water, gathered moss from the back yard, and made a pretty cool looking arrangement.

Turns out soaking the wood was the wrong idea. In that very moist enclosed atmosphere, the mold spores had a heyday.

I tried cleaning off the strands of mold, but each day they renewed. Then I read that it helps if the soil and hardscapes in a terrarium are sanitized before assembly. Hm.

I disassembled my mossarium, cleaned the container and wood, then boiled the wood for an hour. To get it to dry out, I put it in the oven at 225 for an hour, then let it cool. It took three hours-long cycles in the oven to get the majority of the moisture out. I washed all the stones with soap and hot water and set them to dry. I’ll try a slightly different, dryer setup next time.