He did know that moss, unlike grass, thrives in acidic soil. So he covered his lawn in an acidic combination of sulfur powder and aluminum sulfate. Three months later, he raked up the dead grass, leaving a vast expanse of exposed soil. Then he waited through the winter, hovering over his grand experiment. The following spring, moss began sprouting all over the property. “It was like magic,” he said. “I can still hardly believe it. Moss produces spores, and they just blew in from the air. Now I have 25 kinds, none of which I planted.”

This year, for the first time, Mr. Benner will be selling moss starter kits, containing four of the easiest-to-grow moss plants  fern, hair cap, rock cap and cushion  through Moss Acres, a 54-acre moss nursery in the Poconos, started by his son, Al Benner, in 2002.

Moss Acres, one of the country’s few specialty moss purveyors and, according to Al Benner, the largest (it was a source of moss for the atrium garden of The New York Times’s headquarters), is itself a sign of the intensifying interest in moss. The younger Mr. Benner said that in the company’s six years of business, sales have increased by about 30 percent annually. The company’s Web site, www.mossacres.com, draws a thousand visitors a day, he said, adding, “moss is starting to get its day in the shade, I guess you could say.”

There are approximately 12,000 varieties of moss in North America, and most of them require just shade, acidic soil and adequate moisture. Also, the moss bed must be kept free of leaves and debris (although a brief accumulation, like the one that Mr. Brenner gathers in his nets every fall, is all right). Other than that, Al Benner said, “the crummier the soil, the better it is for moss.”

Image A 30-year-old Coles prostrate hemlock. Credit... Jane Therese for The New York Times

Aside from its durability and environmental benefits, he attributes its popularity to nostalgia. “Everyone always says, ‘Oh, I remember when I was a kid, walking through the woods and seeing moss.’ It was probably wherever they grew up, because moss is everywhere. Moss takes people back to being a kid again.”

The elder Mr. Benner sometimes walks barefoot on it after a rain  “some sort of magical invigorating energy goes through you when you stand on a thick patch of wet moss,” he said  and both he and his wife say they enjoy lying down in a particularly inviting stretch of (dry) moss.