Finnish landscape architect Tom Simons has created an artful moss garden that stands out from the surrounding pine forest
IN BRIEF
What Moss garden in a pine forest.
Where Finland.
Size Around 250 square metres.
Soil Rocky, dry, boreal forest, comprising mainly pine trees.
Climate Short, moderate summers and long, cold and harsh winters.
Hardiness zone USDA 5.
Off the southern coast of Finland lies the island of Mölandet. Its proximity to Finland’s capital Helsinki makes it a popular location for Finns looking to escape the city in summer. But on its southern tip, surrounded by sturdy pine trees and reddish granite cliffs, is an unexpected, hidden gem: a moss garden created by the Finnish landscape architect Tom Simons.
Although Tom considers it one of his most important gardens, and has drawn on a range of sources from early landscape paintings to the great gardens of Europe and Japan for inspiration, he is quick to point out that he hasn’t designed this garden as such; rather, he has tried to create the best possible conditions for mosses to flourish in this distinctive, wild space. So subtle have been his interventions that you only realise it is a garden when you look very carefully.
On entering the garden you experience a distinct feeling of calm and stillness, but also a tingle of anticipation like being at the theatre when the lights go down. Then as your senses sharpen, you notice how the light keeps changing, and you begin to hear the birds chirping and the gentle sound of waves lapping the shore. You see how some of the mosses form small, puffy cushions, while others create large, rolling carpets. Some feel like soft velvet, others like carded wool with the firm surface of a pincushion. On a shady slope where the damp conditions help the mosses to prosper, they soften the sharp edges of the underlying rocks like gentle, green waves.
Tom’s father bought the plot in 1985 as a summer retreat for the family. Tom, who for 20 years taught landscape architecture at Aalto University in nearby Espoo, would often visit with his wife Maj and son. Tom initially gave little thought to creating a garden around the cottage, but over time he began to notice the natural mosses growing in the forest glade and to encourage them to spread.
It wasn’t until 2005, however – when he befriended Kazuo Makioka, a master gardener in Japan where moss is highly valued – that his ideas for the garden really began to take shape. Three years later Makioka sketched out some ideas for Tom’s own moss garden and on Makioka’s suggestion Tom ordered two broad planks to represent the poem scrolls that are traditionally hung on the walls or in trees in Japanese gardens. With his two journeymen, Makioka carefully positioned the planks on a rocky slope to form a bridge into the forest glade and mark the entrance to the moss garden.
Tom calls this moss-covered rock the glacier as it gracefully flows down to a wider rock floor, covered with whitish lichen and a reddish-green carpet of peat moss, Sphagnum capillifolium. Towards the centre of the glade, in a carefully chosen spot, Tom has placed a small, vertical stone to represent the guardian stone that traditionally marks the heart of a Japanese garden. “I am rather happy with it,” he says. “It shouldn’t stand out too much. But at the same time, it should look like it has been brought here.” In Tom’s garden this guardian stone also serves as a focal point, drawing your attention to the topographic form of the underlying rocks and, of course, the mosses.
Lichens also prosper in the garden, but Tom is more taken by the mosses. These relatively uncomplicated plants are found in many regions around the world, thriving in humid, rainy conditions. They have leaf-like stems, often forming mats or cushions, and reproduce by spores. Instead of roots they use tiny threads to anchor themselves to stones, trees or soil, mostly in moist, undisturbed spots. There are around 900 identified moss species in Finland – slightly less than in the UK – but only very few of these grow naturally in Tom’s garden, partly situated in a rocky pine forest with heathland. Native mosses that feature prominently include Hypnum cupressiforme, Dicranum scoparium and the red peat moss, Sphagnum capillifolium, which forms vast carpets.
A special species in Tom’s garden is Leucobryum glaucum, known as the pillow moss as it forms soft mounds of green. It’s a small moss that is highly valued in Japanese moss gardens but one that rarely grows in southern Finland. Luckily, Tom’s wife Maj managed to transport a small piece of this “precious Japanese ingredient” in a plastic bag from the Åland Islands. “I had to replant it twice,” says Tom. “It grows in two places now.”
Planting mosses is not easy. You need to choose the exactly right species for the specific surface and keep it moist throughout the first summer. Moss spores are generally spread by the wind, although they are also often carried by birds and insects or on the feet of animals and perhaps the occasional gardener. They grow in many different ways if the conditions are right, and despite being delicate they have the capacity to recover, although it’s important not to walk on them, says Tom.
Over time, largely through patient experimentation, Tom has developed his own methods of taking care of the mosses, although his overriding principle is to look after them on their own terms. Perhaps the most important tasks are weeding and cleaning. Tom removes by hand any unwanted plants found growing in the moss – most often blueberries, lingonberries and grasses such as Deschampsia flexuosa – and picks up any fallen pine cones. He also regularly sweeps the surfaces, especially the edges, of the moss carpets and removes all unnecessary elements, such as pine needles and leaves, using a range of Japanese tools.
For Tom mosses hold an air of mystery. He’s fascinated by the unique place they hold within the plant kingdom, but he also loves the way they look, especially after rain when they are filled with moisture and the tussocks swell in different shades of green. “With moss I’ve found my niche,” he says. “It has proved to be quite important, and has given me something to develop independently within my own field.”
Tom’s moss garden has also given him an opportunity to create several simple works of art that both stimulate his imagination and turn this magical, wild space into a garden. On the border of the glade, he has placed an installation he calls Dance Macabre made from coloured branches of 200-year-old pine trees that had died after an alarming drought one summer. A stone pillar found its place close to the top of the cliff, and marks the entrance into the garden.
Under the rock face he calls the glacier, Tom has created a small, dry garden to represent the pool of water that might have formed from the glacier’s melting ice. And in a nod to Baroque gardens he has cut out a circle from a carpet of lichen and filled it with pine cones to form something that resembles the distinct Baroque shapes known as gazon coupé.“Art invigorates the garden,” says Tom. “It makes me happy.”
Tom’s latest addition is a wooden bench he built last summer, positioned on the garden’s northern border. It’s a perfect spot for observing the garden, especially on late summer nights, when the scene is illuminated by moonlight. Here Tom finds he can let go of some of the pessimism he feels about the future of the natural world and the threats posed by human activity. With his moss garden, Tom reminds us all of the fragility of nature. It is perhaps a living piece of art in its own right.
Moss gardens to visit
Koke-dera, Kyoto, Japan
A UNESCO World Heritage Site, Saihoji Temple on the outskirts of Kyoto is also known as the Moss Temple (Koke-dera), as the exquisite garden surrounding it is estimated to contain 120 different types of moss. saihoji-kokedera.com
Kumaon, Nainital District, India
Created in 2020, this moss garden covers over 24 acres in Kumaon’s Nainital District. It aims to raise awareness of the importance of moss and go some way to rebuilding the public’s connection with nature.
The Moss Garden, Bloedel Reserve, Washington, USA
The Bloedel Reserve on Bainbridge Island, Seattle, comprises 150 acres of forest and landscaped gardens, including a moss garden. Created in 1982, the moss garden now contains at least 40 different types of moss. bloedelreserve.org
Japanese Garden, St Mawgan, Cornwall
Between the bamboo grove and the Zen Garden of this meditative Japanese garden, which was created in the 1990s, there is a small moss garden with a stream running through moss-covered stones. japanesegarden.co.uk
The Japanese Garden at Cowden, Clackmannanshire, Scotland
The recently restored Japanese Garden at Cowden, created in 1908, has a unique collection of plants and trees, structures with Japanese cultural significance, and a dry garden (karesansui), which contains a carefully composed arrangement of rocks and mosses, with four moss islands. cowden-garden.myshopify.com