FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Anyone else dealing with this? How do you kill it? It is growing over EVERYTHING!
Tia!

I have this and another type in some of my pots. I isolated it to peat/sphagnum that was not properly sterilized, e.g. the spores/seeds are present in the peat/sphagnum and start growing slowly over time unless killed before use. Looks just like a layer of algae when it starts. Haven't found a way once it gets started to kill it except to pull it out with tweezers.

Haha yeah that’s nose hair moss. I’ve got it all over too. You can pull it all out with tweezers. Or what I do sometimes is just scrape off the whole top layer. Then you put a top layer of sand about 1/4-1/2 inch deep. That will help keep it at bay.

Is this green stuff not beneficial at all? Or do you guys recommend removing it completely?

It doesn't seem to hurt much except when it out-competes young seedlings. However I do not have a lot of experience with it as it is relatively new for me. Came in with the last batch of organic peat for me and a couple of new drosera as well. The stuff I was using before apparently didn't have it.

KK is that its 'official' name?

a little research turns up Tortula ruralis, aka star moss.

Nope not the official name. lol Over time it forms a dense carpet and can make it hard for small plants to grow roots down through it. All the pots I have it in have large plants that can handle it.

KategoricalKarnivore wrote:Nope not the official name. lol Over time it forms a dense carpet and can make it hard for small plants to grow roots down through it. All the pots I have it in have large plants that can handle it.

That makes sense. Thank you for further clarifying. I have some cleaning up to do with the smaller plant pots this weekend.

It came in in a pot of pygmy drosera and looks like it might be choking out the drosera. But I am afraid to pull it out for fear of destroying the fragile pygmy roots. Thinking about trying just trimming the moss as low as possible but that would likely just make it thicker.

True moss doesn't actually have roots, so it's shouldn't harm the pygmies

Ella wrote:True moss doesn't actually have roots, so it's shouldn't harm the pygmies

It’s not roots you have to worry about. I’ve had this moss grow 1/2 inch or more down into the soil and it gets very dense. Almost like a crust on top that doesn’t allow any plants to grow roots through it. Pygmies are actually one of the plants that can be susceptible to damage from this moss.

KategoricalKarnivore wrote:Haha yeah that’s nose hair moss. I’ve got it all over too. You can pull it all out with tweezers. Or what I do sometimes is just scrape off the whole top layer. Then you put a top layer of sand about 1/4-1/2 inch deep. That will help keep it at bay.

That is a good idea, I might try that.

You can put a toilet paper tube over the plant and then use a butter knife or something similar to scrape the top layer of soil off (hopefully with the moss in it). Then use tweezers to get the rest.

That stuff is pretty harmless. Looks pretty in the right setting but can smother small seedlings.