I don’t know about you, but making moss poles, to me, is a tedious, difficult, jarring task. You lose the beauty of the pole, you waste a lot of supplies and moss, and most of the moss will never even see roots.
Epiphytic plants (plants that grow on other plants, trees, bark) will do better being allowed to climb and place aerial roots into structures. Typically, when you think of a moss pole, you think of a piece of rolled up wire mesh stuffed with moss. But we use natural driftwood here. Some smaller plants enjoy different types of mounts, of which we carry in the shop as well; cork, charcoal, pine bark, etc…
I’m going to walk you through the process of mounting a mature plant to a custom moss pole. In total, I will only use about 1 cup sphagnum orchid moss, and over time we will add more. This makes it easier to keep individual rooted nodes separate and when you decide to chop and prop your plant, you’ll be ready and rooted already! And then you can simply reuse your mount.
Today I am re-potting a mother plant, a Philodendron Micans, with some beautiful color and will bring you along. We start by choosing a piece of wood. You can use a flat piece, a tall piece, a forked piece, it’s entirely up to you, but I’m using a piece of driftwood. I love the gnarled shape, and it will be perfect for our plant. 
It’s a beautiful piece but it’s too long so we’ll cut that down some, considering the depth of the pot as well. We also need to stabilize the stick which is something I see alot of people scratching their heads about. Simple! We just measure out a couple stabilizers, and connect them to the stick. We’ll fill the pot with a porous rock such as leca, lava, or pumice. Don’t use non-porous stones, as this will keep your soil too saturated for too long. 
Alright, now we connect the stabilizers with the same tape we’re using in the next steps, Coflex, which is a self adhesive tape. It only sticks to itself, and not your plants. Roots are also able to pass thru, so it doesn’t restrict the plant. 
Okay, that’s easy enough, and now our pole is firmly supported, and the pot is weighted so we can worry less about it tipping over. We’ve all been there. Using Coflex, we’ll wrap the very top most internode to the pole gently to hold the plant in place so it’s not sliding around. I’ve already gone ahead and wrapped the plant in the shape I want, and now it’s secured.
Once that’s done, we can begin finding the nodes that we want to root. It is not necessary to root all of the nodes, the plant still gets a majority of its water and nutrients from the soil.
We will place some damp sphagnum behind the node point, which is typically located where the leaf stem meets the main branch. This is called the node. You can find them by looking for little bumps or roots. Pack the moss behind it, a good sized pinch should do for now, remember we’ll add more over time. Secure the node to the pole with Coflex, and repeat this process a second time. I have found that this layering helps retain moisture but still allows aeration.
You can see the initial moss behind, and then we’ll add that additional moss on top and secure again. 
We’re almost done! We just need to identify a couple more nodes that are suited for rooting. We’ll move to the very top, as this is the furthest internode from the roots. Once that’s done, we’ll be finished. 
Perfect! You can see how little moss we used, where to make a pole this size you would likely use over a gallon of moss. We can root more nodes later if needed.
Ill go ahead and show off the finished plant. In a couple months, once these nodes have rooted in a process known as Air Layering, we can either remove them for cutting and planting, or you can remove the tape, add more moss, and re-secure. As the roots grow into the moss they’ll begin to hold itself together.
Tip: If you want to wrap moss circumferentially around the pole, the roots can grow around the pole and really latch themselves to it. This is a parent plant, so I’m not doing that here as these rooted nodes will later be removed.
We’re finished! Be sure to keep the sphagnum damp and over time it can take less moisture. Coflex is semi-pervious so it will retain moisture but still is soft enough it won’t damage plants or roots. And if it does grow into your tape, not a big deal! Just plant it as is, and it will be broken down over time as the roots penetrate the tape.
If you need some soil ideas, I’ve got you covered here too. Check out the blend before. A mix of Peat, Humus, Pine Fiber, Perlite, Shredded Sphagnum, and shredded coconut husk. I’ve gone ahead and added some organic fertilizer with Nitrogen to help the plant grow healthy foliage, and azomite which will help provide tons of different trace elements and minerals over time keeping the soil less depleted over a longer period. Check out the mix ingredients and what it looks like when done.
One final tip, you want your soil loose, except around the base of the pole, try and pack that a little tighter. It will help support the pole until the roots can grow around the base and supports we added earlier.
