My standard gardening fantasy involves no work required to have beautiful plants. Many books have been written and perhaps small fortunes made describing how to grow flowers with little effort expended. For years we have been growing way more plants than we can respectfully care for and have just now discovered green beauty growing and reproducing here without any help from us.
This wall cap stone has both lichens and moss growing on it. Names have been assigned to these natural wonders but the labels have altogether way too many letters and microscopic examination is needed to correctly make identifications. We have settled on two names. Lichens in this photo are flat whitish gray objects. Mosses have thickness and are green. Some of these pictured mosses are visually different from the others and likely have individual proper names.
Despite just having been released from the snow cover, this moss has sent up the structures that conventional gardeners would call seed heads. Mossers, properly labeled bryologists, call them capsules and more words are added to describe their unique forms. These are clearly not droopers but here is where the microscope is needed. Seed is not the proper name for the reproductive part but spore might be correct. This moss was recently covered with snow but some liquid moisture and daylight have moved this moss to procreate now.
This moss resembles our native giant salamander known locally as Hellbender. The white beads to the right may be this mosses fruiting body. We will look here again tomorrow to see any changes that might follow.
This clump is a total mystery. What looks like a group of dead sticks reveals individual depressed tip circles that certainly look like they served some useful purpose. We cannot be certain that these are growing from moss. The nearby out of focus red moss certainly catches the eye.
We are quite sure that this multicolored growth on a dead stick is neither moss nor lichen. It may be a mushroom. We have no plans to explore the effects following drying and smoking this little beauty. We prefer functioning kidneys.
This destroys our claim of having discovered no effort gardening. Weeds and desired flowering plants are growing with this moss. The flat green blades belong to Blue Eyed Grass, a wonderful plant in its own right. The oval leaves mark an unknown weed that will require the use of tweezers for its removal. Clearly we have been denied entrance to our gardens for far too long. We really need to place our gloved hands into some thawed ground soon.
