Do you know what we have in common with King Charles III?
If not, than we recommend to read The Telegraph’s “𝓦𝓱𝔂 𝓪𝓵𝓵 𝓰𝓪𝓻𝓭𝓮𝓷𝓮𝓻𝓼 𝓼𝓱𝓸𝓾𝓵𝓭 𝓵𝓮𝓪𝓻𝓷 𝓽𝓸 𝓵𝓸𝓿𝓮 𝓶𝓸𝓼𝓼”!
Author Bunny Guiness thinks it is “time to encourage the emerald invader rather than kill it”! In the UK, there are “more than a thousand different species”, and “because of the range of types, you can find a species of moss to suit pretty much any conditions”.
For The Telegraph, she spoke to her “neighbour Jon Graham, who is an ecologist and notable moss expert”. He was 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝗰𝗸𝗲𝗱 when she asked for “the best way to get rid of it” as he “pointed out that moss is teeming with biota (mini plants and animals living in it) that we are pretty much unaware of, but which are an important part of the ecosystem”! And: moss “is a fantastic carbon sink too”!
Thus, “apparently half a sq m of moss can absorb a kg of carbon dioxide”, a “staggeringly high amount, partly due to the surface area of moss being 30 times its size”. In addition, moss also “cools the environment, because its structure is like a sponge, sopping up moisture and then cooling the atmosphere as it evaporates”. In this context, The Telegraph also considers “’Trees’ made of moss”: We feel thrilled that Green City Solutions and our smart moss filters are named among such impressive examples as Moss Clerks.
Bunny Guinness shared that Peter Sänger & Zhengliang Wu, the “founders of German-based company […] which has pioneered these ‘trees’, point out that in addition to binding CO2, moss filters numerous other gases and substances that harm the climate”. One of “these is soot”, also called black carbon, “which has an effect on global warming that is up to 1,500 times greater than that of CO2”. Mosses are able to “filter such soot particles, which are present in the air as fine dust”.
The author calls to rethink the typical UK lawns and to “also start to encompass a new appreciation of moss, as we realise what a fabulous resource it is to encourage.”
King Charles III uses the term “mown green spaces” for his lawns:
“He relishes the fact that they are teeming with carpeting thymes, selfheal, many other broadleaves and moss, and so they rarely go brown in the summer as a result”. “At Highgrove, the King has developed a small moss lawn”.
So, we all love moss!