Scale for wabi-kusa

Wabi-kusa is a moss or plant mound in a shallow dish. Scale starts with four measurements: the dish’s inner diameter, the mound’s diameter and height, the height and width of the leaves, and the empty floor around the mound. Microscape scale is about rock and wood in three sizes. A wabi-kusa’s main mass is the plants. Hardscape is often small, or absent.

What to measure

Measure inside edges, not the outside of the dish. The same setup can shift 1–2 cm if the tape moves to the outer rim, and then the table below no longer matches.

Five measurements:

Dish diameter: inner rim to inner rim.
Mound diameter: the widest point of the soil or moss ball, not leaves that droop onto the floor.
Mound height: dish floor to the top of the soil surface.
Plant height: soil surface to the highest leaf tip. The mound’s own height is not included.
Leaf width: the widest point of one open leaf. For a thread-like leaf, measure one blade.

One dish with a 16 cm inner diameter can read two ways. A 7 cm mound, 6 cm plant height, and leaves about 3 mm wide is a low meadow, and the floor still shows. A 13 cm mound, 15 cm plant height, and 3 cm leaf width is almost covered from above and reads as a bouquet from the side. The difference is those four sizes.

In microscape scale, a small vessel of 15–25 cm takes hardscape about 5–8 cm tall. Wabi-kusa dishes stay mostly in the 12–30 cm band. A 60 cm tank is a full planted scape, not one mound in a shallow dish.

Area is easier to see than diameter. A mound half as wide as the dish covers about a quarter of the opening, because 0.5 × 0.5 = 0.25. At 70% of the dish diameter, the mound covers about half. Leaves that reach another 1–2 cm outward leave only a slot of floor. The table keeps mound diameter at 35–50% so the mound’s area stays about 12–25%, and water and rim still have room.

Dish and mound

One mound

Dish and mound:

Inner diameter 12–18 cm.
Mound diameter 35–50% of the dish. In a 16 cm dish, the mound is about 6–8 cm.
Mound height 4–7 cm. Past 8 cm, the side starts to read as a pot wall, not as ground.

Two mounds

Dish and mound:

Inner diameter 22–30 cm.
Each mound 8–12 cm wide and 5–8 cm tall.
The two mounds are not the same size. The smaller one is about 60–80% of the larger one.

Dish wall height is 4–7 cm. Above 8 cm, the foot of the mound disappears from the side, hidden by the rim. A desktop wabi-kusa uses that side view: mound, a little water, and floor in one glance.

The core is often a ball of squeezed sphagnum, wrapped in Hypnum or cushion moss. Cushion moss can be the whole mound. A 6–8 cm cushion in a 15 cm dish is already the entire subject. A ring of tall grass on top of it stacks plant height on mound height, and the side view overshoots at once.

Match the table to the mound after it is wrapped and squeezed, not to the wet ball. Wet sphagnum is plump and shrinks once squeezed. For an 8 cm target, the wet ball can start near 9 cm, then be squeezed and wrapped back to about 8 cm. A Hypnum wrap 0.5–1 cm thick adds about 1–2 cm to the diameter. Form the core smaller by that amount: for an 8 cm mound, a core of about 6–7 cm, then the wrap. Sizing the wet ball’s widest point to 35–50% leaves the mound under the band after squeezing, and the floor emptier than the table.

One set that lines up: 18 cm inner diameter, 5 cm wall, 8 cm mound, 6 cm mound height. The gap from mound to wall is about 5 cm. From above, the mound is about one fifth of the opening. The rest is water and dish floor.

If hardscape is added, keep it no taller than the mound and no wider than half the mound. In an 18 cm dish with a 6 cm mound, stone stays about 3–6 cm tall and 3–4 cm wide. A 10 cm stone rises above the mound. The side view’s subject switches from plants to stone, and the scale becomes microscape hardscape rather than one mound in a shallow dish.

Plant height

Plant height is measured up from the soil surface. It does not include the mound. A 6 cm mound plus 8 cm of leaf is 14 cm on the side. In a 16 cm dish, that total is already close to the dish diameter.

Three height bands

From the soil surface:

Carpet, 0.5–3 cm. Monte Carlo, baby tears, and HC Cuba stay in this band. They cover the top of the mound. They do not supply height.
Meadow, 4–8 cm. Keep hairgrass tips in this band in a shallow dish. Emersed hairgrass can run 12–15 cm. That taller band belongs in a dish of 24 cm or more.
Accent: the highest tip stays under half the dish diameter. In a 16 cm dish, that is about 8 cm. Keep 1–3 stems in the whole dish. A full ring of tall stems replaces the meadow plane with a hedge.

When plant height exceeds the dish diameter, the dish reads as a vase and the meadow plane is gone. An 18 cm leaf tip in a 16 cm dish still shows the mound from above. From the side, only the bunch of leaves shows.

In the 2–4 weeks after planting, fine leaves often add another 1–3 cm. That 1–3 cm is what eats the empty floor first. When tips pass the band above, cut back to a 4–8 cm meadow, or to a 0.5–3 cm carpet. The mound can stay where it is.

Plant-height caps for three dishes:

12 cm inner diameter: carpet 0.5–3 cm, meadow up to about 6 cm, accent under 6 cm.
18 cm inner diameter: meadow 4–8 cm, accent under 9 cm.
26 cm inner diameter: meadow may reach 8–10 cm. Hairgrass tips at 12 cm are still under half the dish diameter.

Those three bands are limits for the leaves, measured from the soil surface. Mound height is separate and is not added into the leaf band. In a 12 cm dish, a mound already 6 cm tall plus 6 cm of leaf tip is 12 cm on the side, level with the dish diameter.

At a desk, viewing distance is about 30–40 cm. A 5 cm wall, a 6 cm mound, and 6 cm of leaf divide the side view into three bands, and dish, mound, and leaf all stay visible. At 15 cm of leaf, the foliage takes most of the side view and the dish and mound shrink to a baseline. Capping plant height at half the dish diameter also keeps those three bands in the same frame.

Leaf width

Height sets the side view. Width sets the view from above. A leaf 8 cm tall and 3 mm wide, and a leaf 8 cm tall and 3 cm wide, cover the mound top by different orders of magnitude.

Three width bands

At the widest point of an open leaf:

Fine leaves, under 5 mm wide, can cover 60–80% of the mound top. Hairgrass, HC Cuba, and Monte Carlo sit in this band.
Medium leaves, 6–15 mm. Hydrocotyle is in this group. Use them as accents, together under about 30% of the mound top. A full cover turns the top into one disk, and carpet and meadow no longer stack.
Broad leaves, over 20 mm. On a mound under 10 cm, keep 1–2 leaves. Anubias leaves are often 2–4 cm wide and 4–6 cm long. One clump on an 8 cm mound lets a single leaf cover half the mound.

When one leaf is wider than a quarter of the mound, that leaf is the subject and the mound is a tray. A quarter of an 8 cm mound is 2 cm. A mature anubias leaf often crosses that line, so on a small mound it is an accent, not a cover.

Hypnum is a thin sheet, with leaf scale under a millimeter, used to wrap the mound surface. Cushion moss is a hemisphere. One 6–8 cm cushion already equals a mound. The two mosses are not piled to the same thickness: Hypnum goes on as a layer 0.5–1 cm thick. A cushion moss ball is placed whole, and a second mound is not stacked on it.

“A clump” is hard to measure, so use a unit you can count. Anubias is counted in leaves: 1–2 on a small mound. Hydrocotyle is counted as mound-top area: medium leaves together stay under 30%. Hairgrass is counted by tip height, not by clump diameter, because thread leaves take almost no area from above.

Negative space

Negative space is the dish floor you can still see: shallow water, damp ceramic, rim not covered by leaves. In plan view that is 40–60% of the area. A mound at 35–50% of the dish diameter is about 12–25% of the opening. The rest is water and floor. Drooping leaves take some of that, so start near 40% and still have 40% or more after two weeks of growth.

Where the empty floor goes:

At least 3 cm from the mound edge to the wall, or about a quarter of the dish diameter. In a 16 cm dish, leave about 4 cm on a side.
The gap between two mounds is at least the radius of the smaller mound. In a 24 cm dish, a 9 cm mound and a 7 cm mound sit about 4–8 cm apart.
The rim is the frame. Leaves that crawl the whole rim remove the frame. Let foliage hang on one or two sides, and leave the floor visible on the others.

Water on the floor is a film, about 0–5 mm, enough to reflect the foot of the mound. A separate puddle, if there is one, is 5–15 mm deep and stays outside the mound. Water over the soil ball blackens the core within a few days. The scale response is to set the mound on the floor and keep the water in the open ring, not to enlarge the mound until it fills the water.

One two-mound set that lines up: 26 cm inner diameter, 6 cm wall. Large mound 11 cm wide and 7 cm tall, small mound 8 cm wide and 5 cm tall, gap 6 cm. Hairgrass at 4–8 cm on the large mound, Monte Carlo at 0.5–3 cm on the small one, and a single broad leaf on the side of the large mound. Plan-view empty floor stays around half.

Parameter comparison

The table is the usual band for shallow-dish wabi-kusa. Figures are inner diameter, and height above the soil surface. If hardscape is added, keep it within the mound height. A 10–15 cm microscape skeleton is too tall for a 6 cm mound.

Item	One mound, dish 12–18 cm	Two mounds, dish 22–30 cm
Mound diameter	35–50% of the dish, about 5–8 cm	8–12 cm each; the smaller is 60–80% of the larger
Mound height	4–7 cm	5–8 cm
Carpet height	0.5–3 cm	0.5–3 cm
Meadow height	4–8 cm	5–10 cm; hairgrass may reach 12 cm in a larger dish
Accent height	Under half the dish diameter	Under half the dish diameter, 1–3 stems
Cover leaf width	Under 5 mm, up to 60–80% of the top	Fine leaves as cover; 6–15 mm leaves together under 30% of the top
Empty floor	40–60% in plan; at least 3 cm from mound to wall	Gap at least the smaller mound’s radius, about 4–8 cm
Water on the floor	A film, 0–5 mm	A puddle outside the mound, 5–15 mm, not over the ball

Common scale misses

These four rows are the usual look when the sizes do not line up. The plants can still be alive while the plan view and the side view no longer read as a mound in a shallow dish.

A moss bottle fills most of the container’s volume, and empty space stays small. Wabi-kusa gathers the plants into one mound and leaves about half the dish empty. Planting at bottle density in a shallow dish pushes the mound past two thirds of the diameter. The two scale targets differ: a bottle fills volume, and wabi-kusa keeps the floor.

What you see	Why	What to change
The mound nearly touches the rim, and the floor is gone	Mound diameter over two thirds of the dish	Use a wider dish, or bring the mound back to 35–50% of the diameter
One leaf covers half the mound	One leaf is wider than a quarter of the mound. On an 8 cm mound, a 2–4 cm anubias leaf crosses that line	Return the cover to leaves under 5 mm, and keep 1–2 broad leaves
The grass is taller than the dish	Hairgrass tips at 12–15 cm in a dish only 12–16 cm across	Cut back to 4–8 cm, or move to a dish of 24 cm or more. Cut the tips. Leave the mound in place
Two mounds read as one mass	The gap is under 2 cm, less than the smaller mound’s radius	Open the gap to 4–8 cm. Keep the smaller mound at 60–80% of the larger one

In microscape, wabi-kusa is a mound in a shallow dish, not a full-tank hardscape. Open the microscape studio and generate one reference image for the dish and one for the plants.

Further reading: Microscape scale, Starting a moss bottle.

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2026-10-12