Moss on Lawns
One person's dream is another person's poison it seems. So, for those wanting to eliminate moss from their lawn, here's the scoop on lawn moss. Mind you, if you are trying to create a moss garden, simply reverse all these instructions and you'll have wonderful success.
Moss is first and foremost, a shade loving plant.
We rarely see it growing out in the open lawn because of its preference for high humidity and love of indirect sunshine.
This means that the first step is to decide whether you can even grow grass in a shade garden area. You may better grow a perennial garden with shade loving plants, a shade-tolerant ground cover or even a moss garden itself.
Raking Lawns
If there's enough light for grass but moss is underneath it, the first step in control the moss is to give it a good raking.
Rake out all the moss and pile it up in the compost bin. A regular spike rake works well for this; the added bonus is that as you remove the moss, you'll also be dethatching your lawn.
Basic Lawn Care
Once the lawn is demossed and dethatched, basic shady lawn care techniques apply to growing a thick patch of turf. I've written about these before but in point form: topdress with grass seed every spring to thicken up the patch, mow as tall as possible, and use cultivars of grass that tolerate shade.
Moss also thrives in acidic soils
Lawns with a pH of lower than 6.0 are going to have more trouble than those with higher pH levels.
In order to solve this problem, add lime to the soil at the rate of 2 pounds of lime to 1000 square feet of soil to raise the pH by .01.
I'd get a soil test done and recommendations for adding lime if this were my lawn.
Adding amendments to raise the pH is tricky if you don't know how much to add. You could very well add too much and swing the lawn soil to alkaline. This isn't a problem unless you want to grow grass. You see, grass itself is not fond of too-alkaline soils. So, start with a soil test and add the recommended amounts of lime.
Moss loves low fertility
So if your soil is depleted and poorly fed, moss can become established.
The solution to this is elegant simplicity; feed your lawn.
The soil test recommended above for acidity control will also tell you what to add in the way of fertilizer. If you are resisting a soil test, then add 50 to 75 pounds of compost twice per year or superphosphate at the rate of 1 pound per 1000 square feet. The superphosphate will kick in enough phosphorus so that the moss will be unhappy.
Thatch and moss go together like ham and eggs
If you have a thatch problem, the odds are that moss is not too far behind. Excessive thatch is a management problem caused entirely by the gardener's poor lawn care and anybody who tries to tell you differently is trying to sell you something.
Moss moves into the thatch where it is protected and encouraged. To remove moss in these conditions, it is as simple as improving your general lawn care.
Moisture is the best friend of moss.
Damp soils are little bits of heaven for moss and if the drainage in your garden is poor, leaving damp areas or areas of standing water after rains, you can expect moss to move in and colonize.
You have to improve the drainage if you want to get rid of the moss. A landscaper or drainage contractor can take care of this for you.
I know it is expensive but you have the choice - undrained mossy areas or drained grass areas. We both know that you'll want to try all the above techniques before you write the cheque for drainage repair.
Bottom Line
When we put all this information together, it tells us poor management or poor siting causes moss on lawns. Either improve the management or the site itself and the moss will disappear. Or, get rid of the grass and have a moss garden. Those Japanese gardens were magnificent.
Having said all that, if you have moss on roofs or other non-lawn parts of the landscape that you want to eliminate, this organic moss and algae killer will do it with the least amount of environmental degradation.
Do read the instructions before spraying.
Click here to ask about moss on lawns
