Can I collect moss from the woods to top my orchid pots with?

[ramonypony]

I really like the look of moss growing on top of the potting medium, I don't mean sphagnum moss or algae, I mean the short soft fuzzy mosses. But I'm not sure where to get some, what kind to get, etc.
There is moss in the woods around here, don't know what it's called but it's short and grows flat on the ground. Could I just peel some of that up and place it on the tops of my orchid pots? Would it die?

[Hiester]

I would worry about introducing pests to your orchids, in particular slugs and snails, and possibly diseases, if using mosses gathered from the wild.

In bonsai culture the cultivation of mosses on the soil surface of display specimens use to be a really big deal. There was an entire method of collecting, grinding, sieving, sowing and watering the moss to create a uniform growth and appearance. But from what I've seen on the internet with today's bonsai culture, at least in America, I think the quick and easy choice is to just place bits and pieces of moss just before competition, instead of cultivating it over weeks or months. Still, this might be one area where you could get some ideas, especially a book or two about bonsai culture and display?

[james mickelso]

I'm not a fan of moss on the tops of orchid pots. But if you want to grow some, go find some moss out in the woods, find some with what look like little hairs with a small swelling on the end of the hair. Those are the spore pods. Dry it out and crush it to dust. Wet the media and spread the dust across the tops of the wet media. The problem is you have to keep the media wet all the time in order to get the moss to take off. If you grow orchids, you should know what that means. Fungus. If you have a mister system in a green house you might be able to keep the media wet enough to grow moss. Your choice. Scraping sheets of moss off rocks and dirt really won't work in the long run due to the way moss grows. It sends out hyphae like roots through the substrate on which it grows, secretes a dilute acid which breaks down the rock and get minerals out of the rock. Try it if you think you'ld like a little science experiment. Remember that there are loads of bad guys hanging out in the very dirt and moss you want to grow. When I grew bonsai for 40 odd years I always bought moss spore in packets that had brown in sterile conditions.

[RosieC]

I found moss just naturally appeared on my moist growing Masdies. I take it off each year when I repot (in sphag) but by the next year the surface is again covered in the native moss. I can't as such say it helps the plants, I worry they will get smothered in it. It mostly covers the clay pots and the surface of the sphag though so I ignore it except when repotting.