DIY Cheap Lichen Rescue/Growing Display From Trash! Outdoor AND Indoor Approved!

Do you cut wood for a fireplace, and think of all the strange things that grow on it's bark? Have you seen an area that will be cut down, yet there is plenty of life within the very trees? Perhaps you want to grow some lifeform, but has no space for bulky logs? Some mixture of the earlier, but resource limited? Well, this instructable may be your thing!

I've seen that a neighbor of mine had some wood that would probably be composted by the Municipal' waste management and I couldn't stop thinking about all those pretty stains and interesting "leafs" on it's bark that would inevitably die off - the Lichen. My knowledge on these organisms is limited, but even so I couldn't bear to think of all that loss of life - so, this is how this project started: using what I had, I've created a makeshift "bark" that could serve as a substrate for these Lichen and possibly also be used to teach people about these beautiful and ecologically important symbiotes (yep, there is more than one organism in these structures! And no, they bear no danger for trees!)

And the best part is that this "terrarium" of sorts can be mounted either indoors or outdoors - as ling as the Lichen have water and sun, they should prosper (in their own, slow rhythm) and be kept alive with little cost. This could even function as a means of informing kids about the importance of these organisms!

This project is so makeshift, that literally every single component (except the extracted Lichen from a CHOPPED/CONDEMNED/Soon-to-die TREE, NEVER from a Park, Nature Reserve or other natural sources!) can be exchanged for something else: cardboard, plastic bags, whatever glue or tape at your disposal and even used paper clips. As long as the 'Artificial Substrate' (the thingy where the Lichen will be mounted on), the Lichen's glue (the components who will attach the Lichen's actual substrate to the 'Artificial Substrate') and the 'Wall Mount' (items used to attach the Artificial Substrate to wall/fence/any other eligible surface) are waterproof, the world is your oyster! Or, in this case, your Tree Bark!

However, since I've used cardboard, plastic bags and tape, that's what I will show in this version of this project. A tool for cutting will also come in handy (the scissors showed in the photos were used, albeit blunt as a rock).

The only part of this project that I will not show is the Harvesting of the Condemned Lichen, since it was in the property of a third party. If I ever come across a fallen tree on a sidewalk waiting to go to the composter, I will be sure to take some photos and update this guide. Nevertheless, the procedure of extracting the Lichen from a tree is simple: if it's on a very small twig, you can cut it all and mount the entire twig later into the 'Artificial Substrate'. If it is attached to a larger branch that's too heavy to be mounted, try to remove as much of the internal part of the bark as possible with some cutting tool (WARNING, be MINDFUL of the dangers of cutting oneself!), being careful if it's extremely moist since rotten wood would rather crumble into powder than be neatly removed whole. And if the Lichen is not on a condemned tree but instead on a rock, leave it. It has survived years on that surface, and will likely survive many more IF left to it's own devices.

Be mindful of only removing from Nature what would otherwise be lost because of human action.

Also, if mounted Indoors, water has to be provided by means of any kind of sprayer with rainwater (at best) or whatever water you have available.

Lichen are slow-growing symbiotes that are made up of a mycobiont (a type of Fungi that provides the tridimensional structure of the Lichen) and some sort of photobiont (a large number of microorganisms that uses Sunlight to create sugars, the "engine" of the relationship). In order to preserve this structure, an waterproof 'Artificial Substrate' is needed to simulate a tree's bark - thankfully to our purposes, Lichen do not generally feed on the bark and, as such, their nutrition will come from the air itself and water (meaning that, if mounted indoors, the whole structure should be close to a window).

I had Cardboard and Plastic Bags available, so I've used that. I've cut the Cardboard until it could nicely fit inside the Plastic Bag, using two Bags in order to have both the top and bottom edges be completely engulfed by the Bags and having no space for water to seep in. As one can see, I've tied the ends of the Plastic Bags into a makeshift knot, but they can be cut and glued together if one decides for a better visual presentation. Since my focus was on reusing 'garbage' and saving some microscopic lives, beauty was left by the wayside.

However, from the top of my mind, I could think of some other materials that could also be useful as a waterproof 'Artificial Substrate':

*Milk Cartons (if care is taken to cover the cardboard part of it).

*Plastic Sheets (such as those Plastic Folders or E.V.A Foam. Any rubbish pile will be full of them).

*Plastic Bags (if one does not mind their fragility, or instead aim to glue a lot of them together. Cheap and resourceful!)

Remember: the only important aspect is waterproofing. Tree bark and small twigs shouldn't be so heavy as to require a lot of structural support, but one can do whatever they might to improve aesthetics. I care not for that, so I haven't.

Some leftover Tape was used to keep the bags flush into the cardboard a little better, but as shown in the last photo of this step even used paperclips can do the job! This is really as cheap as it gets!

As shown in the above pictures, this part is no real mystery either: use whatever glue or tape you have at your disposal to adhere the Inner Part of the Tree Bark into the 'Artificial Substrate'. Here, I've used E.V.A Glue which takes a lot of time to air-dry and is not that waterproof, but then again, is what I had available. Even Hot Glue could be used - as long as care is applied to prevent the glue from completely melting the Plastic Bag or the 'Artificial Substrate' itself. Since Treebark is oftentimes not flat, care should be taken to make sure it is correctly glued to the flat 'Artificial Substrate'.

Again, I've used tape to hold the 'Artificial Substrate' into a wooden furniture next to my bedroom's window. The important part is that there is Sunlight reaching the Lichen and you can moisten the 'Artificial Substrate' with water in times of drought or just to speed it's remarkably slow metabolism.

And yet again, this was a makeshift project. You can use whatever you need, just make sure that the setup is waterproof.

Really, it's that simple!

Just some food for thought, if you decide to use it as an education tool:

Before showing to a class, it's best to leave it dry for a few days until the Lichen acquire a dull-looking appearance. Then, during the presentation, just mist the 'Artificial Substrate' with enough water for splashes of Green and, hopefully, some Yellow and even Orange to appear! It's a wonderful visual way to explain how the Mycobiont protects the Photobiont from dehydration and Sunburn in times of drought, and how quickly the Photobionts can be activated by water!

Try to show the three most common structures of lichens: Crustose (those that attach to the Bark like a crust, impossible to peel), Foliose (those who seem to resemble a salad or a leaf) and Fruticose (those that can easily be mistaken with a moss and have an appearance of a small tree).

If I'm not mistaken, there are even Instructables on this website that teach how to make Lichen dye! The link is https://www.instructables.com/Creating-Lichen-Dyes-Letharia-vulpina-or-Wolf-Lich and, if requested, I will take it down from here. But just to show that some Lichen can be useful to us directly!

And, to demonstrate how important they are to our environment, there are a bountiful quantity of online resources to teach more about these liveforms! One can even go to Youtube and search for the small creatures that use it as habitat! You could also eliminate the myth of Lichen being dangerous to plants (one too many people believe in the mistake of bleaching a trees bark to remove these precious lifeforms!)

There are so many information that I want to dumb into this project, but anxiety is taking it's toll on me. I hope I will have the time to better structure and edit this project. And, fingers crossed, even manage to take photos of some exquisite structures (in the thumbnail of this video, one can see some strange dish-like plates. That's a reproductive structure!)

This is my first ever guide, so I'm all ears for critics! It's by standing in the shoulders of giants that Humanity has transcendent our material bodies and I'm a firm believer that, if we are to maintain such spirituality, knowledge and guidance should be shared worldwide.