My first kokedama is six months old now and I finally feel like I understand what I'm doing
Made my first moss ball back in the spring with a pothos cutting, some akadama and peat mixed together, and whatever sphagnum moss I could find at a local garden center. Honestly the first two months were a guessing game. I was soaking it every three days without really paying attention to the weight, and the thing stayed perpetually soggy. The pothos survived anyway because pothos survive everything, but the moss started going brown and crispy on the outside even while the core stayed damp.
The weight method finally clicked for me around month three. Picking it up dry versus freshly soaked is such an obvious difference once you train your hands to notice it. Now I just lift it every morning and if it feels noticeably lighter I drop it in a bowl for about ten minutes. That simple change made the outer moss green up again within a few weeks.
I also switched to a shadier spot on my windowsill. A lot of beginner advice focuses on light for the plant inside the ball, which makes sense, but the moss itself seems much happier without direct afternoon sun hitting it. The color is a deeper, more even green now compared to that bleached patchy look from before.
Thinking about making a second one with a small fern, maybe a bird's nest fern since I've heard they tolerate lower light well. Curious whether anyone here has had good long-term results with ferns in kokedama, and whether the watering needs end up being similar to what I'm doing with the pothos. The inside soil mix would probably need adjusting too since ferns seem to want something that holds a bit more moisture.