Buying guide · Moss walls
Preserved moss walls: how to specify, size and cost a panel
VivaPetal ships preserved reindeer moss as 5 kg loose cartons, 30 × 30 cm sheet-mounted panels or a sized kit, and sizes a wall from net area and depth rather than from a target weight. This guide covers which format suits the job, how to turn a drawing into a weight, and why freight follows shape rather than kilos.
Moss or lichen? What reindeer moss actually is
What the trade calls reindeer moss is, strictly speaking, a lichen of the Cladonia group rather than a true moss; we confirm the species against the sample we send, because the handling advice below follows from it.
The distinction is worth settling before anyone draws a wall. A lichen has no roots and no vascular system: it takes what it needs from the air across its whole surface. Stabilised and dyed, it holds its form indoors and needs no water, light or drainage layer — but it has no route to recover from a bad room. Sealed in a damp store it softens, and once softened the springiness that gives a wall its depth does not come fully back.
In a specification that becomes three lines: interior only, nothing where the surface can be rained on, splashed or sit in condensation, and cartons kept sealed and off a concrete floor until installation. Specifying for a contractor rather than ordering for yourself? The glossary defines sheet-mounted, coverage figure and chargeable weight.
Loose moss, sheet-mounted panels, or a sized kit
The same material ships in three formats, and the difference is not quality. It is who does the labour, how tightly colour holds across a wall, and how much of the drawing has to be settled before the order can be priced.
| Loose, by weight | Sheet-mounted | Sized kit | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unit | 5 kg carton | 30 × 30 cm panel | Whole wall as one run |
| Labour | Fixed by hand on site | Backing already fixed | By hand, quantity from the drawing |
| Suits | Irregular shapes, planters, tone blending | Large regular fields, tight programmes | Walls installed in stages |
| Trade-off | Highest labour per square metre | Fewer colour choices than loose | Needs a settled drawing |
Loose moss is the flexible option and the costly one on site: it shapes around openings and awkward corners, and it is the only format where tones can be blended by hand, though a mixed blend has its proportions set at packing rather than panel by panel. Panels move that labour to us and go up in sequence, which matters when a fit-out team is waiting; what you give up is colour choice. The moss page carries the specification for both.
The sized kit is for walls installed over more than one visit: the quantity is calculated against your drawing and produced as one run, so the panels fixed in week two match week one. For the interiors it suits, see interior applications.
How much moss a wall needs
At 30 mm depth, one kilo covers roughly 0.6–0.8 m² — our planning figure as of October 2026. That figure is an estimate, not a constant: the range exists because packing density depends on how far the material is teased out, which varies between installers and between panels. Confirm the figure with us before you size a wall from it.
The width of the range is the point: twelve square metres at 30 mm comes out between fifteen and twenty kilos before allowance, and five kilos is a whole carton. Send the drawing, not a target weight — a wall derived backwards from cartons usually fails on site.
Colour matching across a wall
The board runs in 16+ tinted stock colours plus natural, and the palette goes past green to whites, pinks, reds and blues — a scheme is not locked to a foliage colour. Two or three tones can be mixed within a carton where the wall should read as a natural field rather than a flat plane.
The rule that decides whether the wall works is the one nobody enjoys hearing: order the entire quantity from one production run. Colour is dyed rather than inherent, so two runs of the same recipe read slightly different when placed side by side. On a single panel nobody notices; across a wall it shows at the join, and it cannot be corrected on site.
Give us the total area at the outset, even if only phase one is going up now, and we will hold it as one run. If the wall will be seen in raking light — a corridor, a wall beside a window — the run matters more.
A shade outside the range becomes a dye development with its own approval; how custom dyeing works sets out the sequence. The one-run rule applies to any display built from panels, as the retail display guide explains.
Why a moss wall is a freight problem, not a weight problem
Air freight charges on chargeable weight: the greater of actual weight and volumetric weight, the latter calculated from carton dimensions divided by 5000 or 6000 depending on carrier and service. For most cargo the two sit close enough to be academic. For moss the volumetric figure wins by a wide margin — the cartons are large for what they weigh.
So the number worth asking for early is carton dimensions, not kilos: loose and panel cartons do not pack alike, and that decides what a forwarder can quote. Ask for both with the quotation, before a freight budget is committed.
Compressing the load to save volume should be resisted. Flattening cartons crushes the branching structure that gives the material its depth, and material that arrives flattened stays that way long enough to be a problem on installation day.
Documents and terms for a commercial installation
A commercial invoice and an itemised packing list are issued with every shipment, and those two are the standard set. Anything further depends on what the project is specified against and where it is going.
Fire-performance reports and declaration documents come up on every fit-out and are confirmed per destination, not promised in advance. Give us the standard and the country of installation and you get a plain answer, including a no — worth more before the drawings are signed off than after.
Delivery is quoted EXW (Kunming) as the default, FOB where you have a forwarder at the port, and DAP as the last option. We are a sourcing and export business rather than a factory: material is selected in Kunming, and stabilisation, dyeing and packing are done by our production partners to the agreed specification. The sourcing guide explains that split.
Before a wall is ordered, a sample settles depth and colour cheaply. Sample boxes cover what a trial contains.
Common questions
Moss wall questions, in the order they arise
By the kilo. The square metre is the design figure and the kilo is the order unit; depth converts one to the other, at roughly 0.6–0.8 m² per kilo at 30 mm. Send the net area and the depth and we will run the conversion with you.
Not reliably. Two production runs of the same colour read differently side by side, and the difference shows at the join. If the wall will grow, give us the final area at the outset and take it as one run, holding the later phase in its cartons.
Confirmed per destination. Tell us the standard and the country of installation and we will say what can be provided and what cannot. Asking early is worth more than asking late, because the answer sometimes changes the material rather than the paperwork.
It prices on volume: chargeable weight is the greater of actual and volumetric weight, and moss loses that comparison every time. Price freight from carton dimensions and chargeable weight, both confirmed with the quotation.
Next step
Send the area and the depth — we will come back with a weight
Net wall area, the depth, the colour direction, and whether it goes up in one stage or several. Add the destination and the freight comes with the quotation.