Making sphagnum covered wood for trailing vines

I want to take my Sweetheart Vine (Philodendron scandens ssp. oxycardium) and train it climb a sphagnum-covered piece of wood. Problem is, how do you keep the moss on the wood? It must be kept moist, so I guess the Elmer's glue is out! Any suggestions?

I did this once....I bought some 'meshy' material (kind of like the bags that onions come in...but it was white colored) from the fabric department at WM, and wrapped it around a large wooden dowel with transparent fishing line.

You can usually find the black or green colored plastic mesh/webbing for keeping birds out of your veggies at the local garden shops.Then take a piece of that cut a lil larger than your board or pole, staple one side to the board all the way down on 1 side then push your moisten moss under it and pull it tight to the other side and staple it in the back. It works pretty good and I have hubby make a T shape brace at the bottom to help it stand up right in the pot. The T shape at the bottom of your pole will give the pole /board a lil more stability and add enough weight to the pot to keep it from falling over from the weight of the plant & materials.

Hope that helps some...

MsC

I am finally going to attempt to make this today...thanx so much for your suggestions. I'll let you know how it goes.

Can you believe that I went to my local nursery yesterday to ask them about this. Well, my favorite two guys (the most knowledgable about everything green and flora) were not working yesterday, so I asked other workers. One guy told me that he simply could not help me out. One girl didn't know what i was talking about, but they didn't have any philodendrons anyway (I wasn't looking for one, I already have one, thank you!!!) And the last guy told me to hot glue the sphagnum moss to the wood. When I questioned him that the glue would fall off the wood when it gets wet (because you have to keep the sphagnum moss wet after trailing the plant), he said that the glue is only going to work as well as the item you put it on (which suggested to me that it would fall off), but that it would stay on the wood. So, thanx again for your knowledgable answers!!!!

Kim,

Let us know how it goes...sometimes the "Store Help" is just No help at all... guess they haven't found the fun in plants just yet..lol



MsC

Welp, I did it...I will take a picture of it later today and upload it.

This is what I did:

I didn't want the mesh to show, so I bought regular fishing line. I soaked the sphagnum moss till thoroughly wet and squeezed it so it was like a sponge. I took my piece of board, tied the end of the fishing line around it and knotted it. I laid down a small amount of moss, put the line on it to hold it down. Turned the board 1/4" (the board was actually a split log that I split down to 2" x 2" x 18"), added another chunk of moss, laid the line down on it. I continued this in a spiraling fashion. After I had it initially covered, I wrapped the fishing line around again and again to take up the long chunks that were hanging. Then, I placed it up against the back wall of the pot, added the dirt, and added the plant. I trailed the vines around the moss covered board. Pretty cool...I will get a picture up so you can see it! I want to do this for my Monstera deliciosa, which is still a baby really....I acquired a rooted cutting last fall.

Lisa

Here is the finished product!

Lisa