Moss Wall Inside a Corner Glass Terrarium: A Look at the Stickiness of Pure Red Clay

There are two moss wall I recently made in response to some follower’s requests—planted inside a right-angle glass terrarium. The moss I am using is Leucobryum moss.

This corner terrarium has a 90-degree corner, so I’ve always called it the “corner greenhouse.” It was originally designed to sit perfectly in a room corner.

These photos were taken right after I finished building it.

I used pure red clay, so you can still see traces of red clay around the moss edges.

The method is very simple.

How to mix the red clay into a workable paste, how to spread it onto the glass, and how to attach the moss—every step is posted on my video channel. You’ll see all the attached video below.

I made two versions of this corner-style moss wall.

Clean, pure clay soil is incredibly useful.

Watch my clay-mixing videos (scroll down to the bottom) and you’ll see how fine the clay soil (available on my website www.ncypgarden.com) is—almost like cooking flour or rice powder. If not for the color, you might think I was bread dough.

Red clay is naturally strongly sticky.

On the other hand, if you don’t need such strong adhesion—such as when making a slope, or when you just want a bit of support to keep the plants from wobbling—you can mix in other materials to reduce stickiness.

Two more points that you might not notice just from the following video:

Store your prepared clay in a sealed bag so moisture will not escape.

One batch can last for two to three months.

When applying clay to glass, always keep a bowl of water beside you.

Wet your hands before grabbing the clay—this prevents it from sticking to your fingers while you push it into place.

I’ll keep filming and sharing the follow-ups as they grow.

This is the first one.

This moss wall is actually “floating.”

The clay is applied directly onto the glass surface. After the clay layer was in place, I added the wood at the bottom.

Even the moss was laid first—only after that did I pour in the volcanic rock and plant two Fittonia whose roots are tucked into the gravel.

Tutorial:

This is the second one:

This is the second corner moss terrarium, and this time I used stones.

Using stones as the structural “bones” of a terrarium is very different from using wood.

Wood is light. You can simply stick it into the soil or bury it in the planting substrate and it will stay in place. But stones are heavy. No matter what kind you use, they must be properly secured.

For this build, I used three pieces of Seiryu stone.

When building a structure with stones, you either glue them in place, or you rely on their own weight to wedge them securely. If you use glue, you need to choose smaller pieces and carefully glue them to the glass. But the stones I chose this time were large—heavy pieces—so glue wasn’t an option.

So first, I chose the stones, adjusted the angle, and placed the main stone at the base. Then I used two smaller stones to wedge it tightly so the big stone couldn’t move inside the glass terrarium.

After that, I filled in the planting substrate, making the stones even more stable.

No glue was used at any stage.

But because of this, I didn’t dare to lay the container down to apply red clay. I had to keep it upright and smear the clay onto the glass directly. The making-of video should be posted on my video channel—you can scroll back and check it.

So the entire build had to be done with the container standing upright. I really had no choice—if I laid it flat, the stones might slip.

The planting substrate was still: volcanic gravel (don’t replace it with LECA or pumice—the volcanic gravel is heavy, which helps wedge the Seiryu stones more securely), sphagnum moss, and akadama.

For mounting the moss onto the glass, I still used red clay. That’s why you can see traces of red clay along the edges of the moss.

This corner moss terrarium uses only Leucobryum moss.

If you want to add a second moss species, you can replace the bottom layer of Leucobryum with Plagiomnium cuspidatum. Plagiomnium can handle occasional water pooling.

About watering: a small misting bottle is enough. I especially recommend a small cosmetic-style spray bottle—the kind you pump by hand. Even if you spray with all your strength until your finger hurts, you still won’t overwater it.

Its buidling video:

This is the third one：

(to be updated)

How to make red clay dough: