Spanish Moss in Nj

[NorCalKing]

2 hours ago, bubba said:

This thread is funny! Why would would anyone be happy about zone pushing a noxious pest like “Spanish Moss”.  Analogous to trying to push Brazilian Pepper into Georgia. 

I do not disagree that it looks stately on a Live Oak from a distance. Climb that tree, pull down the moss and you will look like you have a bad case of the measles and a very itchy case...

 

 

Lol, that's exactly what I thought. 

[Chester B]

15 hours ago, RJ said:

I've always wanted to try your PNW Big Leaf Maple. Pretty cool tree I might add. 

They are all over by my house.  Aside from the giant leaves, they have very nice long dangling flower clusters in the spring.  As far as north american maples go I think they're probably the best overall looking tree.  You can even coat the flowers in batter and fry them up as fritters.

[RJ]

50 minutes ago, Chester B said:

They are all over by my house.  Aside from the giant leaves, they have very nice long dangling flower clusters in the spring.  As far as north american maples go I think they're probably the best overall looking tree.  You can even coat the flowers in batter and fry them up as fritters.

Huh... I thought getting out in the spring and cutting fern fiddle heads to cook up was oddity. Very cool I'm going to try them out. Not sure how they will handle our summers might keep them as an understory tree. 

[Manalto]

5 hours ago, bubba said:

This thread is funny! Why would would anyone be happy about zone pushing a noxious pest like “Spanish Moss”.  Analogous to trying to push Brazilian Pepper into Georgia. 

I do not disagree that it looks stately on a Live Oak from a distance. Climb that tree, pull down the moss and you will look like you have a bad case of the measles and a very itchy case...

 

 

Then don't climb the tree and pull down the moss. Hitting yourself in the head with a hammer and putting your hand on a hot stove are also not recommended.

Brazilian pepper is an exotic invasive and Spanish moss is native.

 

[Silas_Sancona]

1 minute ago, Manalto said:

Then don't climb the tree and pull down the moss. Hitting yourself in the head with a hammer and putting your hand on a hot stove are also not recommended.

Brazilian pepper is an exotic invasive and Spanish moss is native.

 

It also benefits wildlife.. and people.  Pepper trees are detrimental to everything, like Salt Cedar, and Australian Pine.       A little homework also reveals that Chiggers living in Spanish Moss ..up in the trees where it hangs from... is an old urban myth.. Chiggers don't climb trees..    More than likely any "bites" ( stings actually ) someone might receive from collecting Spanish Moss out of trees are from native Twig Ants caught up in it.  Stuff laying on the ground?  yea.. leave it there. 

The stuff wouldn't be grown / sold by both Orchid and Bromeliad growers world-wide if it "attracted"  harmful bugs..

[Manalto]

3 hours ago, Chester B said:

I think they're probably the best overall looking tree.

I agree. I also like Vine Maple, Acer circinatum

Edited May 3, 2019 by Manalto

[Estlander]

I picked a backpackful of Spanish moss barehanded to bring some over to my yard and never felt an itch or sting or saw any bugs in it. 

I don’t think it’s nearly as bad as some people think it is as far as Chiggers, ants or other bugs living in it. 

[Nj Palms]

45 minutes ago, Estlander said:

I picked a backpackful of Spanish moss barehanded to bring some over to my yard and never felt an itch or sting or saw any bugs in it. 

I don’t think it’s nearly as bad as some people think it is as far as Chiggers, ants or other bugs living in it. 

I agree. It's only the stuff on the ground that has many bugs. I picked some off low trees for 5 days in Savannah and didn't see one bug.

[Manalto]

1 hour ago, Nj Palms said:

 I picked some off low trees for 5 days in Savannah and didn't see one bug.

To be fair, at 1/120th of an inch, you probably wouldn't see them even if they were there.

When I've collected it in the past (Savannah also) I did it the lazy way - just picked it up early in the morning from the streets.

Edited May 3, 2019 by Manalto
accuracy

[bubba]

You guys are right. I am wrong. Very little down here. Still like it. Sorry to offend. No intention.

[Nj Palms]

2 hours ago, bubba said:

You guys are right. I am wrong. Very little down here. Still like it. Sorry to offend. No intention.

You're fine.

[Manalto]

My Spanish moss is in bloom in Mobile.

[MarcusH]

Brackenridge Park here in San Antonio Texas has quite a lot of trees with spanish moss but haven't seen it anywhere else outside of our local parks . We're in zone 8b and 9a.

[ESVA]

I think I may have to try some Spanish moss here in Accomack VA. Might be too late, though, for this season. We have hot, muggy summers, but not usually stifling humidity like just after a hurricane rain. 

A while back I read of a guy who left the Deep South and bought a lakefront home someplace  up north  where there was no Spanish moss. He missed it so, that he went back and filled his car trunk up with the airplant and planted it on trees at his lakefront home and it grew well with all the humidity. Then his neighbors all wanted some, so he began selling it and soon his  business was doing well enough for him to quit his old job. 

It might not be so weedy  in a place where temps are cooler and there's less humidity.  Supposedly, even if the plant itself is killed by winter, the seeds held on the plants will survive and germinate in the  spring so long as the moss is still hanging up in the trees. If snow and ice drag the plant to the ground, then the seeds don't have a chance of germinating and growing. 

Though an airplant,  the tillandsia does needs some nutrients from dead leaves from whatever it's growing on and has preferences.  At First Landing Park in Virginia Beach, it seems to grow very lush on bald cypress and live oak near the central lake.  It might like pecan trees as well, as searching just now, I see an article on removing spanish moss from pecan orchards. 

 

[ESVA]

Virginia Beach's First Landing Park is usually listed as the northernmost limit for the natural range of spanish moss. However, there apparently was also a patch of spanish moss in Northampton County, VA: 

Northampton County  VA Spanish Moss

 

Quote

 

In the 1930s, however, renowned Harvard botanist M.L. Fernald found a good-sized patch of Spanish moss 35 miles to the north, in Northampton County on Virginia’s Eastern Shore.

That patch persisted for decades. Fleming, a 62-year-old, bespectacled ecologist with Virginia’s natural-heritage program, found it there in 1996.

Then, it apparently disappeared or died. Returning to the site with other scientists in 2009, Fleming couldn’t find the moss. “That was pretty mystifying to me,” he said.

Fleming’s moss hunt didn’t look promising. You used to be able to see the moss hanging from trees along a country road near Eastville, but not now.

As Fleming and Field worked their way through the trees, Richmond Times-Dispatch photographer P. Kevin Morley said: “Isn’t that it?” In the forest, just off the road, he had found the northernmost patch of Spanish moss known to science — something experts hadn’t seen in 17 years.

About 45 minutes later, Morley found a second, slightly larger patch.

Edited September 13, 2023 by ESVA

[Jack W]

This is my first time posting on this forum.  I am an eclectic collector pf plants - especially those having a fragrance.  One thing that I saw missing from this discussion was that this bromeliad is one of the few fragrant Tillandsia.  A number of years ago I received a small clump of Spanish moss with one of my orchid purchases and decided to grow it with my outdoor orchids.  I mounted/attached it to a suet feeder which I converted for the purpose of confining and displaying it.  I grew it under but not attached to a backyard tree which provided a modicum of afternoon shade.  Spanish moss and most of my orchids are  not hardy in my area,  so I would bring them inside annually when the temperature would get below freezing.  Eventually my small clump outgrew the feeder and became a a sizeable hanging mass.  One summer evening while watering my hanging plants, I noticed a delightful fragrance coming from the area of the Spanish moss and I was pleased to see, on inspection, a multitude of tiny green flowers which were the source of the fragrance.  To me -  it as an unexpected delight.  To collectors of Tillandsia, I am sure that this would not have been surprising but to me it was.  This little night bloomer adds a tropical look and under the right conditions of humidity,  a pleasant (to me) fragrance to my back yard so that is why I keep it.

[Silas_Sancona]

19 hours ago, Jack W said:

This is my first time posting on this forum.  I am an eclectic collector pf plants - especially those having a fragrance.  One thing that I saw missing from this discussion was that this bromeliad is one of the few fragrant Tillandsia.  A number of years ago I received a small clump of Spanish moss with one of my orchid purchases and decided to grow it with my outdoor orchids.  I mounted/attached it to a suet feeder which I converted for the purpose of confining and displaying it.  I grew it under but not attached to a backyard tree which provided a modicum of afternoon shade.  Spanish moss and most of my orchids are  not hardy in my area,  so I would bring them inside annually when the temperature would get below freezing.  Eventually my small clump outgrew the feeder and became a a sizeable hanging mass.  One summer evening while watering my hanging plants, I noticed a delightful fragrance coming from the area of the Spanish moss and I was pleased to see, on inspection, a multitude of tiny green flowers which were the source of the fragrance.  To me -  it as an unexpected delight.  To collectors of Tillandsia, I am sure that this would not have been surprising but to me it was.  This little night bloomer adds a tropical look and under the right conditions of humidity,  a pleasant (to me) fragrance to my back yard so that is why I keep it.

Yep, one aspect of the plant most people either aren't aware of, or don't really acknowledge..  Some also may not know that flowers can be Bluish in some forms, ..or ..the more commonly encountered.. Greenish Yellow.  Cool plant either way.

[Ohiopalmloverz6]

On 5/2/2019 at 1:08 PM, RJ said:

Red maple? I loath Red maple, most invasive root system possible if you're a gardener.  They even invaded my potato buckets last year 

As a former Maple Syrup maker, sugar maple on the other hand 

Ik, old post, but I have to agree. Our yard is full of them. They are the most common tree in our area. Yes, in the spring they look so pretty with their red flowers. But they make an absolute mess with the helicopters and helicopter stems. They also get super big and are a pain with the roots.

[PalmatierMeg]

On 5/3/2019 at 8:25 AM, bubba said:

This thread is funny! Why would would anyone be happy about zone pushing a noxious pest like “Spanish Moss”.  Analogous to trying to push Brazilian Pepper into Georgia. 

I do not disagree that it looks stately on a Live Oak from a distance. Climb that tree, pull down the moss and you will look like you have a bad case of the measles and a very itchy case...

 

 

One person’s noxious weed is another person’s botanical treasure. I remember the PTer who collected Australian pine seeds to grow on the northern Gulf Coast. All of us in SFL almost had a conniption fit. The only saving grace for him is that A.P. Is too cold sensitive to succeed in LA, MS, AL

There used to be a “health care” company that peddled processed melaleuca trees for their health benefits. An elderly lady I knew from Mt. Vernon, VA tried several times to offload the product on me. I had to tell her my allergy to melaleuca was the worst of all 104 allergens I was tested for - twice. Horrible, invasive stuff.

[bubba]

Melaleuca is horrible! I do not mind Australian pines but that is my personal preference and I note the state of Florida has eased many of the destruction requirements.

As it relates to melaleuca, I am still reminded by a story told to me by my grandfather, a GC in PB. He was building a large house in the early 1930’s for wealthy northern folks, who were dead set on the use of a number of melaleuca trees to “make a landscaping statement”! He paid $250 dollars each for a number of these noxious trees!

The only equalizer in this equation is that the poor Australians fell in love with our noxious Pond Apples from the Glades and are now dealing with that conundrum!