moss

bacon n eggs

Help.. garden full of moss ..suggestions how to get rid.

jason2010

Evergreen Complete 4 in 1. Just used it 3 weeks ago and has worked like magic

bacon n eggs

Thank you, I assume just apply and it goes black and rake off or is it different?

jason2010

Correct. But it also has high nitrogen which really greens your lawn. After u rake it off just throw new seed down and water in

NIMAN

Have you thought about hiring a scarifier?
My lawn is in pretty good nick but I think getting rid of all the old thatch and moss using one of these would let the remaining grass breath and grow.

redser7

Lawn sand is another product that works very well.

ymurtagh

Sulphate of iron, very cheap in agri stores, and use a scarifier a few weeks after also

My Potatoes

What's causing the moss in the first place? Is the lawn shaded? Is it wet? Tackle the cause and you'll fix the problem forever. Sand, sulphate and so on will be short term fixes only.

MaryK666

ymurtagh wrote: »

Sulphate of iron, very cheap in agri stores, and use a scarifier a few weeks after also

I'm totally with ymurtagh on this one. My back garden is full of moss. One side is very shaded and is particularly bad but it seems to be patchy all over the garden. The ground is not the best drained but there's nothing that I can afford to do about the drainage right now. I got a big 10k tub of sulphate of iron on Saturday in a garden/homeware store, mixed a few scoops with water and spread it with a watering can. The moss started to turn black before my eyes and today it's still dying off. I'm looking forward to being able to scarify it in the next day or two and get rid of a lot of the moss.
I'm going to aerate the lawn with a garden fork and then re-seed it and hopefully that will help it for now. I know there's a good chance it will grow back until I get the drainage sorted but if it makes it look better - even in the short term - it'll be awesome.

Cork boy 55

Whats so bad about moss?

C.

Sulphate of iron will burn moss , only short term though. iron reduces the ph of your soil leaving it an ideal environment for moss to re-establish itself once wet weather resumes.Moss loves a low PH .. to really solve the problem you need to add pelleted lime a couple of weeks after moss killer has been applied. this should keep the soils ph at a normal levels . A ph tester kit will give you the correct reading for your ground.

ymurtagh

Sulphate of iron is not a short solution, it is just part of normal lawn, never had experience of increased moss growth after using either

C.

ymurtagh wrote: »

Sulphate of iron is not a short solution, it is just part of normal lawn, never had experience of increased moss growth after using either

if that's the case why does moss reappear every season. because soil ph is lowered by using iron. iron is acidic which favours moss growth. farmers use large amounts of lime to keep ph high which also allows other fertilizers be taken up more efficiently. you'll never see moss growth on an agricultural field.. A Danish company producing a horticultural moss killer called osmo states that you must apply lime after the moss killer to counteract the sway in ph . In my opinion S.O.I is been overused.

fryup

^^^^^^^^^^

seems like you know what you're talking about...are you a pro-gardener/greenkeeper?

rickmoister

I asked the horticulturist in the local COPE garden centre about moss in my lawn and he said that SOI is only a short term solution that lime needs to be applied as well to help with the ph or else the moss will come back.

redser7

Well it will come back if the under-lying causes aren't addressed. But the SOI does a great job of clearing it out.

rickmoister

The other cure is hens. I let my hens in different areas of the lawn for 2 days and they root up all the moss:D.I collect it with the lawn mower afterwards. The underlying cause for the last number of years in my lawn is the weather. My lawn is well drained and not shaded ,I have had it spiked sanded etc but the moss is back:(. So when it dries up again I am going to put the hens to work and get it spiked again! the war goes on.

C.

fryup wrote: »

^^^^^^^^^^

seems like you know what you're talking about...are you a pro-gardener/greenkeeper?

Landscape gardener and past greenkeeper.D'ont get me wrong, Iron is an important element of nutrition for plant health however too much of any one element will have negative consequences at some stage and this is a prime example.

fryup

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

C. can you please give us a step by step guide on how to get a moss free lawn

Loobz

I bought iron of sulphate in Arro hardware (12kg for 12 euro). I mixed some with water in a bucket, poured it into a clean knapsack sprayer.
I then sprayed the lawn. My moss is now dead.

In the meantime I built a homemade scarifier that I will tow behind my lawnmower. This will rake up and loosen the dead moss ( I will do that next week). Will let you know the results.

I will over seed a bit and hopefully existing grass will grow a bit thicker and new seed will take root. Fingers crossed.

Iron of sulphate all the way (check online about how to mix it).

Loobz

So here are the results from my homemade scarifier.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

On the right is fresh grass clippings. I mowed the lawn, then towed the scarifier behind the tractor mower. I then collected the moss with the mower after. On the left of the photo is the dead moss and thatch.

To give you an idea of how much moss came off the lawn.
I filled one box of grass clippings from mowing. However I filled TWO boxes with moss and thatch! Still cant believe how much came from the lawn.

The best way is go from end to end of lawn and then cross over (criss-cross). Hope this helps.

MaryK666

You don't have any before and after pics - do you Loobz?

I used the Iron Sulphate on my lawn about two weeks ago and only got out to rake it yesterday because of the lovely weather and my work schedule. The moss was well and truly dead and I managed to give myself some nice blisters from using a hand rake but there was heaps to come off it and the poor lawn looked very sorry for itself afterwards. I haven't had the time to get out and run the scarifier over it or re-seed it yet but I've noticed that there's some grass starting to grow where the moss was and while it's still a bit scraggy, it's grass and not moss.