Journal
OUTSIDE
March and early April, the cold rain seems like it will never end, and the city looks especially grey.
Species/contents:
Thuidium (fern moss)
Dicranum (rock cap moss)
Leucobryum (cushion moss)
Polytrichum (haircap moss)
Various other moss types in smaller amounts
Woodland plants
Insects, microorganisms- beetles, flies, ants, moths
Humans
Stones, soil, peat, sand
A few moss characteristics:
Being a non-vascular plant, moss is more similar to green algae than to plants such as trees and shrubs. Without a method of transporting water up from the soil, the moss needs a damp climate in order to photosynthesize and grow. When the moss dries out, it does not die. It simply goes dormant until water returns. Without adequate moisture the moss will shrink back, lose its green, and cease growing. Mosses also need water in order to reproduce.
Moss uses for humans:
To bind a wound
To insulate or keep warm
As a pillow
As an indicator of pollution
Vaughn Bell Journal - April 18
INSIDE
April 18:
Installation: immediately the space is filled with the smell of damp soil and the off gassing of the plastic, which becomes fainter after a couple days and then disappears. Preparing the soil, tamping it down, and making sure the moss is densely pressed to the surface of the ground- the garden grows. The moss consists mainly of three types and a random assortment of other collected mosses. The fern moss is a brilliant green, amplified by the fluorescent light to appear almost unnatural. Dicranum is a thick shock of green as well, puffy and dense. The cushion moss is dark and absorbs the water like a deep sponge.
Vaughn Bell Journal - April 21
INSIDE
April 21:
Within
days of planting and after constant watering the moss is deeper green
in places. But a few inexplicable brown spots have appeared. Also,
quickly small shoots have popped up, especially from the cushion moss
and the large central clump. A few more days later, many small shoots
are also emerging from the fern moss. The temperature is significantly
warmer inside the biosphere, and the air is thick and damp.
OUTSIDE
Spring is so slow
to arrive in Boston, and then suddenly a bright, hot day and the street
trees are in bloom. The magnolias, then the crabapples and cherry
trees, followed by rain, rain, rain…
As the biosphere develops into a warm, moist tank of green, out in places in the city things explode in green also. Brisk, cold sun, and things are blooming in parks and backyards. Where lawns exist they have turned green over the course of ten days, and hotels and office buildings have filled their planters, first with forsythia, then with tulips and daffodils.
Vaughn Bell Journal - April 30
April 21: 
Within
days of planting and after constant watering the moss is deeper green
in places. But a few inexplicable brown spots have appeared. Also,
quickly small shoots have popped up, especially from the cushion moss
and the large central clump. A few more days later, many small shoots
are also emerging from the fern moss. The temperature is significantly
warmer inside the biosphere, and the air is thick and damp.
April 30:
The
spear-like shoots get taller every day, brought inside to this
artificially warm spring. A consistent dampness has been created by
constant watering, so that walking into the space gives the sense of
stepping in sodden ground, your feet sucked in by the soil and sand.
The moss settles into a constant brightness of green. Rusty sporophytes
dot the surface in places.
Vaughn Bell Journal - May 7
INSIDE
May 7:
Close, a sea of tiny sprouts covers the fern moss, each a couple of inches high,with exactly two leaves each. The spear-shaped sprouts grow taller, and from the cushion moss a small fern springs up. Several insects, many long-legged flying ones that land on the plastic and hang there, moths
and gnats. The brown spot on the fern moss has gotten smaller, in a few places the moss along the edges of the structure is browner, drier.
OUTSIDE
85 degrees, then cooler again, and lilacs in corners and edges of yards are blooming and sending their scent out onto sidewalks. Tiny planters and sidewalk pots are filled with pansies and impatiens.
A hot day hits and we are reminded of the city in summer, with the sun baking on the pavement. In vacant lots and the corners and broken edges of sidewalks, many things grow- Japanese Knotweed already sending out runners and growing up through the dead stalks of last year. Alianthus trees are also beginning to leaf out where they sprout in the sides of roads and along chain link fences. Dandelions blooming all over Boston Common.
Vaughn Bell Journal - May 11
Overnight- a mushroom popped up! Then several more thin ones with tiny caps.
May 11:
Some
mushrooms laying limp and rotting on the moss but several others have
grown up, still smaller. The tiny sprouts in the fern moss have not
grown much but everything else is bigger. Some shoots of grass have
quickly emerged. In patches of Dicranum and in some of the fern moss,
new batches of sporophytes have appeared, they are not as tall yet or
as rust-colored as the other ones. The spores, seeking to land on
unoccupied ground, will find none in this enclosed space. Some of the
moss is perhaps over-saturated with water, a deep dark green. Different
species grow better or worse. Cushion moss in one location appears to
be filling over with fern moss. In another the Polytrichum, with dark
green tree-like sprouts, which was present in only small quantities, is
growing more prevalent. Insects are growing large and seeking to
escape, but to where? Also some slugs, ants, gnats.
Vaughn Bell Journal - May 18
Some mold in one spot on the Dicranum. Several small spots of lichens growing on the moss. They are a pale blue-green. The insects keep multiplying.
May 18
The water is almost soggy with damp in some places. Watering selectively- the high spots and edges are much drier. One patch of cushion moss appears to be growing over with Dicranum, and more haircap moss popping up in places. In the middle, a few dry, yellowed spaces. A spider is crawling around. Many, many insects. Beetles crawl in and out of the fern moss. The sprouts that pop up have grown leggy, reaching desperate for the ceiling of light. The fern has another shoot but expands slowly.
Vaughn Bell Journal - Final Entry
May 21A spiderweb stretches across the inside of the structure, catching on an arm or face. Small flies and gnats land, and the upper corners are covered with flying insects in spots. Microclimates within the space seem to help or inhibit growth. In some places too soggy, too dry, not acidic enough. A few brown patches in the center have expanded. The Dicranum on the edge has greened back up after watering. In one corner, a rotting smell has combined with the smell of soil and plants. The leggy sprouts have in some places keeled over or started to brown. Others continue to shoot up. The small, two-leafed ones have gotten no larger, persist as their own small forest.
OUTSIDE
Lilacs are now in full bloom. Seeds and petals are filling the breeze. Weather alternates between 70 degrees and 40 degrees. Many shades of green in patches around the city are solidifying into a mass of summer green canopy. Grass has grown over the vacant lot, covering the rubble in places.