Gardening Garden Design Garden Projects How to Make a Tabletop Moss Garden Make your tabletop moss garden in 5 simple steps. By Helen Yoest Helen Yoest Helen Yoest is a perennial learner, researcher, and teacher of gardening, nature, and the environment. After completing her formal education in London, England, she began her career in the environmental field. With nearly 40 years of experience, Helen has worked as a researcher in air pollution science, garden writing, garden maintenance, and sustainable gardening.Helen is a lifelong nature lover who has always surrounded herself with birds, bees, butterflies, insects, and snakes and learned to identify and care for their habitat.From 1985 to 2001, Helen worked at Parson Engineering as an air pollution engineer. After that, she owned and operated Gardening with Confidence, a gardening maintenance company, for 16 years. In 2017, Helen founded Bee Better Naturally, an educational non-profit teaching homeowners to sustainably attract and care for birds, bees, and butterflies. She is a national speaker on sustainable gardening, garden maintenance, garden art, nature, and the environment. She also teaches classes to attract wildlife and sustainability. She's written three garden-based books: Gardening with Confidence, Plants with Benefits (featured in the New York Times), and Good Berry, Bad Berry.Helen has written dozens of gardening stories for Dotdash Meredith brands, including Southern Living Magazine, Garden Gate, and many others. Learn about BHG's Editorial Process Updated on April 4, 2023 Project Overview Working Time: 1 hour Total Time: 1 hour Skill Level: Beginner Estimated Cost: $30 Add a little color to your table with this easy-to-do moss garden. This DIY project adds an artistic touch to an outdoor seating area or brings nature inside with rocks, plants, and some touchable moss to finish it off. We used a ceramic dish to hold the dirt and moss in place, but you can choose any flat vessel you like (just be sure to add a drainage hole). Self-taught moss expert, garden designer, and artist David Spain of Moss and Stone Gardens supplies moss to thousands of clients across the country. He created this moss garden for us. Follow the step-by-step instructions to create yours. BHG / Adrienne Legault What You'll Need Equipment / Tools Drill with ceramic-tile bit Spoon Skewer Tweezers or surgical clippers Materials Ceramic dish Landscape fabric Pea gravel Well-draining potting mix Rocks Vascular plants Moss Instructions How to Make a Tabletop Moss Garden BHG / Adrienne Legault Drill Holes Using the ceramic-tile bit, drill a center hole in the ceramic dish. Add just enough water to cover the bottom of the dish, allowing water to settle the dust and cool the drill bit as it heats up. Begin drilling at a 45-degree angle to create a groove as a foothold, stabilizing the bit. Then slowly move the drill to a 90-degree angle and finish drilling. Wash the dish. How to Make an Adorable Broken Pot Fairy Garden in 4 Easy Steps BHG / Adrienne Legault Add Fabric and Pea Gravel Line the bottom of the dish with landscape fabric, so rock and potting mix won't clog the drainage hole. Add a thin layer of pea gravel to assist in drainage. 9 Dish Garden Designs That Will Bring the Outdoors In BHG / Adrienne Legault Add Potting Mix and Accents Add well-draining potting mix to just below the brim. Begin adding your "bones" of the dish garden. Use a kitchen spoon to dig holes for vascular plants (such as baby ferns). In this project, David Spain uses a rock and an ebony spleenwort fern for structure. BHG / Adrienne Legault Cut and Add Moss Add a larger piece of moss than the space allows and, using your clippers, trim to a size a little larger than needed so the edges can be tucked in. Lay it atop the potting mix and press down firmly. The 10 Best Self-Watering Planters of 2024 to Avoid Overwatering Tuck in Edges Use any tool to tuck in the edges of the moss. Spain uses a bamboo skewer. Using tweezers or surgical clippers, remove any leaf debris. The final design includes mosses Brachythecium rutabulum and Dicranum scoparium, reindeer moss (Cladonia spp.), and ebony spleenwort (Asplenium platyneuron). 9 Terrarium Fairy Garden Ideas That Are Utterly Adorable