How to Make Kokedama - tutorial and care, live moss ball houseplant

I'm Benji, and today we are going to go over everything you need to know about kokedama. So we'll talk about what plants are suitable, how to make one, so we'll go through all the steps and I'll show all of the materials, and then we'll also talk about how to take care of one, so lighting, watering, and fertilization, and then finally discuss how to display them. So there's multiple ways you can display a kokedama. Here is one example in a dish. Also, I'll be putting timestamps throughout this video for each category we're going over. So that way you can use it as reference when you eventually make your own. So I've been making kokedamas since 2019 and my methods for making them has changed over the years. And now I feel like I'm at this point where this is a very solid method and I've had a lot of success with it. Do you see Winnie and Theo back there? Now they're both going on the plant pot. There's not one way to make a kokedama. There's a bunch of different materials and methods you can use. This is just what I like to do and what works in my environment. So let's quickly go over what a kokedama is. Kokedama originates from Japan and kokedama means moss ball. So as you can see this is a moss ball. So typically it will be Live moss on the outside, inside of the ball there's some type of substrate, it could be soil, it could be moss, it could be akadama, which is what we are going to use. And then there is typically a plant growing out of it. So what plants can you use for kokedama? There are so many possibilities, I could not go over all of them. I'll put a list of plants that I've used or that I've seen work really well in kokedama in the description. Most tropical house plants would work, so like a small ficus you can make into a kokedama, you could do pothos, you could do spider plants, you could do small dracaena, you could do snake plants. Some of my favorite plants to use for kokedama would have to be white star grass, so that's this grass that you see. Grows really well in this environment, and it sends off a lot of shoots that go on the side of the kokedama. And then I also really like to use flowering plants. So in here, this is a purple bellflower. So when spring comes next year, it's going to produce some really nice purple flowers. The prettiest kokedama that I see, they always have flowers on them. The white stargrass also flowers, and it makes little white stars. And then this is a Sارissa photita. It's commonly used as an indoor bonsai. Plants that can be used for indoor bonsai look really good in kokedama. So there's the Sarissa photita, there's also ficus like the tigerbark ficus, and some other ones are the fukien tea tree. Any plant that works as an indoor bonsai would look really nice in a kokedama. So let's talk about mosses that work for kokedama. There are two mosses that I've had a lot of success with. So the first one is a sheet moss. I'm not sure of the specific species, but I believe this is within the Hypnum genus. And I'll link the specific moss that I used in the description. I got this one off of Etsy. And what I really like about this moss is that instead of growing as like a clumping moss, it spreads and it goes across the kokedama and it makes a really nice sphere. This moss Feels very forgiving and it bounces back very easily and also I keep these two kokedama in open air conditions in my house. The moss is able to stay green. I'll talk more about the care later but if you want live moss in your house this is the way to go. Or you could do a terrarium but But it's kind of fun to have it like not. in an enclosed environment and then this kokedama has the other moss this is called the Leucobryum glaucum also called cushion moss and it is more of a clumping style so it doesn't really spread as much it will spread over time but it's not as like wrapping as the sheet moss so i like this one too it gives a different look but i do find that the sheet moss grows a little bit better than the cushion moss. today i'm going to make three different kokedamas. they'll all be more or less the same process but this will give you a little bit of an idea of the different kinds of kokedamas and the different kinds of plants that you can make. now let's go over the materials. You'll need a mesh net bag to hold the substrate, Akadama, which is the substrate, and then string. I like to use green cotton string, but you can also use fishing line, and then live moss, and then dried sphagnum moss. This is kind of optional, and then slow release fertilizer pellets, which are also optional. and then scissors to cut the string and trim moss. and lastly a plant. the first plant i'm going to use to make a kokedama is this nandina bamboo, also called heavenly bamboo. so the first step is to unpot the plant and then rinse off all of the soil off the roots. so we are going to do this outside. let's do a little trip and go to the yard. okay so we're out here in the yard and here is my nandina bamboo. just unpotting it very gently. you don't want to um destroy the roots. Oh look at that. Gently remove the soil. Gently peel away the soil. So now I'm just rinsing off these roots. Let's just make sure that this would fit. And yes, it does. You don't have to get every little piece of soil off of the roots, you just want most of it off. I find that this helps prevent things like root rot. So first you take your mesh bag. I found that this makes making the kokedama so much simpler, so much easier, and it allows for That's for... like a bag to hold your substrate, which in this case is akadama. This is used for bar soaps. You're supposed to put the bar soap in here, I think, and then it helps suds it up. We're using it for I'm doing it for kokedama. When you use this you do have somewhat of a limited size kokedama you can make, so if you want to make a larger one you can use pantyhose. It's very stretchy and you can just fill in your substrate here and you can make it pretty large. So that's another option if you can't find the dish sudsing. bag. but i'll put links to everything that i can in the description. yeah i plan to make a larger kokedama soon using this panty hose. okay now let's bring you in closer and i'll show you how i do this. so the first step, take your bag and add in a little bit of akadama just on the bottom. oh by the way this is akadama. it's a hardened clay and it works really well as a substrate for plants. It's most often used for bonsai, and this in a way is kind of like making a bonsai. Now that you have your bag with a little bit of akadama in it, now add some slow-release fertilizer. You can use any slow-release fertilizer, as long as it has pretty balanced NPK ratios. This one that I use is from Osmocote. And so I like to use slow release fertilizer pellets because live moss doesn't like liquid fertilizer. So this makes it easier to fertilize your plant without having to worry about damaging the moss in the future. But really these plants don't need that much fertilizer because they are staying pretty small. Okay now you add in your plant. Be gentle with the roots if you can. So I'm going to have it growing a little bit sideways because Its stem is kind of strange. Okay so situate your plant sort of where you want it and then start adding in the rest of the akadama. I like to fill it with as much akadama as I can just so that way there's a good amount of Substrate to hold water. What's really nice about Akadama is that it can hold a lot of water But it also is pretty free draining. So I've never gotten root rot using Akadama before. What's really useful about these mesh bags is that they have this little string that you can tighten and then you can tie it off. I know it looks a little bit funky with this about this. stick coming out but That's just the way this thing is growing. I dug it up from my yard. So it doesn't have to be perfect, you just want it tied near the base or like the neck of the plant. So we're going to go outside one more time because this is the step when you want to rinse out your akadama and get all the dust and the small particulates out of it. You'll see like a bunch of dust and stuff, like brown water. Can you see it? Here is our plant ready to get mossed up. I started to add dried sphagnum moss around the outside before I add the live moss. And that's because live moss benefits from being able to attach itself to something. But I found that it's not able to attach itself to the mesh and I believe it's because it is a synthetic material that's very slippery. So I have started to add sphagnum moss around it. And then the live moss on top. Also with the dried sphagnum moss, it allows the kokedama to size up a little bit because otherwise it is a little bit smaller than I would like. So at this step, you need to get your dried sphagnum moss and wet it a little bit. And then you need to get your string. So for this step, you put a little bit of sphagnum moss. Around the kokedama. This doesn't have to be perfect because we're putting the live moss over it. Create an anchor point with the string So I like to go underneath the moss ball and then go around it and then you create a simple double knot And also when you're doing this you want to be pretty Uh, aggressive and make the string as tight as you can because that is what keeps everything contained and it makes it look pretty nice. The purpose of the anchor point is to allow you to tightly wrap around the plant. Just get a little bit of moss on at a time and then as you wrap around, you'll eventually start adding more and more moss. To fill it in, so I like to do the sides first before I start doing the bottom. And a tip that I've learned is to go pretty close to the stem of the plant because do you see all of this sphagnum moss that's coming out? You want that to be pushed down. Because it makes it look a lot neater. You could actually, if you want, just stop at the sphagnum moss step. You don't need to go and use live moss. I like to use live moss, but if you're going to add live moss you don't need to worry about it not looking very clean because the live moss is just going to cover it anyway. But this is where you want to generally make your ball shape. So as you're tightening it with the string you can kind of like smush it and create the shape that you want. It doesn't have to be a ball. You can make it Whatever shape you want, really. Some people find this pretty difficult, like moss is just falling everywhere, but you just kind of learn over time like how to position the kokedama while you're doing it. It's, I've made a lot of kokedama, so I have a decent amount of experience. So people always say I make it look easier than it is when he's just staring at me, or staring at the plant. I wonder if you can see here in the shot. Yeah, be very tight with this. That's a mistake. Oh. Okay not that tight because I just broke the string. So I'm actually done with tying it now actually so it's fine that I broke the string. We have to tie off the loose string. I like to use tweezers. You don't need to use tweezers but it makes it a lot easier. So just find some string that's on the kokedama to tuck the loose string into and then you just do another double knot and go under one more time. Okay and then you trim off the excess string. If you wanted to, you could stop here. This is the step where I would trim off all of the excess that's coming out to clean it up, but I don't need to do that since I'm covering it with the live moss. But I mean, yeah, if I stopped here it looks pretty nice. The moss I'm using for this plant is sheet moss. I have some sheet moss growing in this container. I'll leave a link to where I got it in the description. Something I didn't mention about the sheet moss is that This is that it's a lot easier to use to make a kokedama Because it comes in a sheet like this, so it makes it a lot easier to wrap around and then you just tie it off. With other mosses, like the Leucobryum glaucum, they come in clumps. It's a little bit more difficult to keep the moss on while you're tying it. With the sheet moss, it's super easy. So this is definitely more beginner friendly. Just start wrapping your moss around it like this. And then this is the same process. Um, that I did with the sphagnum moss. Now we have to make an anchor point. Like I said earlier, I like to go underneath and then tie it over the top. And then because the sheet moss keeps its shape pretty well, you don't need to tie it around as many times. Now we add more moss to the bottom. So if you have any little patches exposed, cover them up with moss and then just tie it around again. We are almost finished tying it off. Looks nice. That's nice. We have to cut the string off and then close it. so once again i'm just finding another string that's on the kokedama, tucking this one underneath, or tucking the loose end underneath, and then making a double knot. wind it back. the reason why i use the green string is because it blends in really well with the moss and i used to worry about the string like decomposing and then the kokedama falling apart but i haven't had any issues with that so far. i think the moss attaches itself So I believe that's why I don't have any problems. I'm gonna cut everything back and shape it with the scissors. And a benefit to cutting back your moss, especially sheet moss, is that every place where you cut it, it'll branch out. So that helps the moss spread across the kokedama. While you're cutting this, just be careful to not cut off your string because then your kokedama could unravel. Just go all the way around, trimming it as close as I can. So it is going to look worse before it looks better. I feel like kokedamas really start to look good after about one to two months. I'm gonna rinse it off and then I'll put it on a dish and show you guys the finished product. Here is the finished kokedama. I placed it in a dish with a foot at the bottom. I'll go over more display options later in the video, but this is just my favorite way to show them off. The next kokedama I'm making is different. So we are using two plants in this one and we are going to use Leucobrium glaucum, the cushion moss. Kind of a different method, similar but some little techniques that are different. This plant is a white star grass. I just got it in the mail so the longer leaves have kind of broken off so I'll be cutting those off. And then this plant is called a balloon flower. I washed off the soil and I trimmed back some of these. Leaves from the white star grass that were really long and falling over. Yeah, this plant is gonna look a little bit messy for a while but once all of the new leaves and the new growth comes in it'll look really nice. So here the bellflower, the white star grass. It's pretty easy. It's essentially the same thing as what you just saw except you put two plants in the bag instead. Same process, a little bit of akadama, then put the plants in and then fill it again. It's a little bit trickier with two plants just because uh, keep them from falling over and stuff. It's nice if you have some help so someone can like hold the plant for you while you're putting in the akadama. Chris, do you want to help me? Thank you. So I tied it off, cut off the excess string, and now I rinse it off outside. So now I'm going to wrap it with the sphagnum moss and then I'll stop once I get to the live moss and talk a little bit about how it differs. Here's a kokedama with just the sphagnum moss. And now we are going to add the cushion moss. So the reason why this is a little bit more difficult than the sheet moss is because it comes in these kinds of clumps. So when you're doing... Oh, wow, wait. This is way thicker than I expected. You have to, like, put one patch on and then wrap it around and then put another patch on. So it's just not as simple as the sheet moss, but it's also not too, too difficult either. I'm going to do an anchor point. This just makes it easier to start tying it right when the moss is on. Place the moss on like this. With this moss, I would actually recommend not being so tight with it. You just kind of want it to stay on the ball. But if you go too tight, you end up ruining the moss. This moss just feels a little bit more fragile than sheet moss. So it's kind of like putting a puzzle together. You know, you find pieces that fit in the spot. This looks huge. I underestimated the thickness of the moss, so this one is huge. It's looking pretty good. A little bit big and a little bit lumpy, but as it grows in, it'll like balance itself out. And then as the plants grow too, it'll offset the hugeness of the kokedama. I think this is the biggest kokedama that I have. Looks better now, right? Here it is. It's a bit larger than I would typically make it but I didn't account for the thickness of the cushion moss and eventually this will look really good once the brown spots fill in and once the moss kind of like stops looking so bound up by the string it's going to look really nice. I mean it already looks pretty nice. And then once this grass grows out from the sides and once this has a flower, just imagine that. These are the two kokedama I made. To give you an idea of what it'll look like over time, this moss will grow into looking like this moss, and then eventually this will look similar to this. It's kind of the same concept, flowering plant with white star grass. Something I really like about white star grass is how these Leaves curl sometimes. So now that we've made our kokedama, let's go over care. The first thing I want to talk about is watering. So the type of water that I use for my kokedamas is reverse osmosis water. So that is like pure 100% H2O without any minerals or chemicals in it. I have a reverse osmosis water system underneath my sink. I use it for my aquariums and for my live moss, but I know not everyone has something like that. So you could purchase distilled water or purchase reverse osmosis water. At my supermarket it's 99 cents a gallon so it's kind of pricey if you're always purchasing distilled water. Not too bad though if you only have like one or two kokedama. You could try using your tap water every region every area has different tap water so in LA my tap water is very hard and full of minerals so I've noticed that over time my moss that I water with tap water it just like eventually starts to look dull and turn brown and not a vibrant green so yeah I've had way more success with my reverse osmosis water. I haven't tried this myself but I've heard of other people using Dechlorinator for their water and then watering their moss. So that is like Seachem Prime, which is a dechlorinator That's often used for aquariums whenever I start out my kokedama For the first like one to two months or even longer if I feel like it I mist my kokedama every Morning and every night if it looked dried out for some people it might seem like a lot of work But I actually think it's really fun to mist moss for some reason one of the first things I do whenever I wake up in the morning is mist my Kokedama. So I'm gonna show you how I mist my kokedama. I mean, I'm just misting it, but there's kind of a technique that I do. This is what I show my friends whenever they're plant sitting my plants when I go away. So I spray the entire ball. So I go up and then down, and then just go all around the ball. And I make sure I saturate every area where there's moss. Okay, and that's it. That would be one misting. For my established kokedama, I do spray every morning, but I could get away with not spraying it for like three to four days, and it's just fine. But I like to spray it every morning. In addition to misting the kokedama, I also submerge it in water for about one minute. This is to just fully saturate the substrate and also saturate the moss with water. I guess I'll show you how to do it, but it is just putting the kokedama in water. You take your kokedama. Put it in the water. Usually I have more water so it's completely filled up saturating all of the edges and stuff and for my new ones I do this about once a week but for my older more established kokedama I haven't done this in a while. After you had it soaking for a while lift it up and let the excess water drain out. Also you never want your kokedama to sit in a layer of water. Terrestrial mosses do not like excess water like that. If it's sitting in water for too long, it will lead to the moss dying. So if you see excess water catch in your dish or whatever you're using to hold your kokedama, make sure you dump it out. So that is it for watering. Also, if you have any questions or if you need something clarified, feel free to comment and I will do my best to respond to any questions about care. Next, let's go over lighting. Lighting for kokedama can be a little bit tricky because you need enough light for your plant to grow but mosses are pretty sensitive to really strong like hot direct sunlight. So I don't have that many optimal locations for my kokedama to receive natural light because Because, um... Most of the areas that receive good light also receive some direct sun throughout the day and a little bit of direct sun is fine for moss but too much will kill the moss pretty much because it's too hot and it's too strong. So in terms of natural light the best location to have a kokedama would be somewhere where it receives a lot of light but not direct sun or at least doesn't receive direct sun on the live moss portion but it could receive some direct sun on the emergent plant portion. So the best locations for natural light would be an east facing window because it'll receive a little bit of direct sunlight in the morning but it won't receive the Harsh afternoon, late afternoon sun. Anything filtered. So you could have like a south facing window with the curtains drawn. So that way it's filtered light that comes through and not like direct sun rays. But my preferred method that works really well is to use a grow light. It's good because grow lights provide a lot of light for both the plant and the moss, but it's not hot and it doesn't damage the moss. So I've had these two kokedama growing underneath grow lights Ever since I created them and they are currently underneath Soltech Grow lights. You don't need to use those lights but they are really nice and they can attach underneath the shelves and they have a nice color temperature. I have a discount code Benji15 for 50% off. They are a little bit pricey but they're really nice. But you don't need to use those grow lights you can use any grow lights. For plants, I'll leave some links to some grow lights that I think would work well. They even have grow lights that are just light bulbs, so you can screw them into a lamp. You can put them into a desk lamp and then have it on your desk. See, that would be nice, right? Like a little desk lamp lighting this kokedama. So going on, now let's talk about fertilization. So you saw me put in slow-release pellet fertilizer into the... pouch that we used and then we filled with akadama. I think that's the best method to fertilize your kokedama because mosses do not really like liquid fertilizer so adding the pellets into the substrate I think is the best method for liquid fertilizer. If you want to use it make sure you just like really really dilute it but honestly these plants in kokedama they don't need that much fertilizer and nutrients because they are kept pretty small since they don't have that much space to grow out. I know that some Some people don't put any fertilizer in their kokedama, but I like to see my plants grow. grow and look pretty vibrant. So yeah, I add fertilizer. Now let's talk about how to display your kokedama. There are so many ways you can do it. I personally love a dish with like a foot at the bottom. I just think it complements the shape of the kokedama and the proportions just look really good with like the height of the kokedama and then the roundness of the ball and and then the openness of the dish and then how it tapers down it just looks Very nice to me. So that is my preferred method. Every time I use a dish like this I add in little rocks at the bottom because it helps the kokedama from sitting in water and you can add little fertilizer pellets to it and eventually it'll root down into the bottom. So you can You can thrift a bunch of different dishes, like it could be kind of more bowl-shaped, or it could be. Like a little sauce dish. For example there's this bowl that I got while I was in Vietnam, I got this at my grandparents house. You could use this, or you could use a little sauce dish too, or a plant saucer, or you could even use a rock. This is kind of a cool look. Um yeah, see? And then you could do something like this where you have the kokedama suspended in a cloche on a little suction cup and it looks like it's floating. This kokedama I've had for three years now. It's very old. Really need to like make it look nicer. I used a different moss on it. Um, that isn't very suitable for kokedama. I use live sphagnum moss. So yeah, there's a ton of different ways to display your kokedama. Get creative with it. Endless possibilities. Okay, so that is it for this video. Let me know if you have any other questions, if I missed anything, if there's anything I wasn't clear on. And yeah, I hope you guys enjoyed this video. I'm happy to finally get this out. I've been wanting to make this kokedama video forever. And if you make a kokedama using the tutorial, please tag me on Instagram. And post it so I can see it, because I would love to see what you guys make. Thank you so much for watching, and I will see you in the next video. Bye.