I cut my garden for the first time this year and found that I now have about 50/50 ratio of grass to moss.
I know the cause - poor drainage, clay soil etc so I've bought an aerator and some treatment but does anyone have any old wisdom, the type of wisdom passed down from grandfather to grandson that they could impart ???
Last edited by dinny_g on Wed Mar 12, 2025 8:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
JLv3.0 wrote: Thu Jun 21, 2018 4:26 pm
I say this rarely Dave, but listen to Dinny because he's right.
Rich B wrote: Thu Jun 02, 2022 1:57 pm
but Dinny was right…
I don't have any wisdom to add on moss I'm afraid but I'm going to shamelessly hijack this thread to ask @Mito Man what product it was he used to kill algae on paving as my patio to the rear is doing a good job of blending in with the greenery around it
GG. wrote: Fri Mar 07, 2025 12:37 pm
I don't have any wisdom to add on moss I'm afraid but I'm going to shamelessly hijack this thread to ask @Mito Man what product it was he used to kill algae on paving as my patio to the rear is doing a good job of blending in with the greenery around it
Wet and Forget
On the moss front it’s been the one of the wettest years ever. Just put down a moss killer, rake/scarify after 2 weeks, mow, chuck down some new seed on the thinner patches.
GG. wrote: Fri Mar 07, 2025 12:37 pm
I don't have any wisdom to add on moss I'm afraid but I'm going to shamelessly hijack this thread to ask @Mito Man what product it was he used to kill algae on paving as my patio to the rear is doing a good job of blending in with the greenery around it
Wet and Forget
On the moss front it’s been the one of the wettest years ever. Just put down a moss killer, rake/scarify after 2 weeks, mow, chuck down some new seed on the thinner patches.
Our clay soil means the lawn has a lot of moss (just like our old house, and my house before that). I don't dislike it enough to have done anything about it. I did put some moss killer on my lawn about 15 years ago and it ended up with black dead moss everywhere, so I never bothered again; green moss is fine
However, I have been watching Youtube videos about it just in case I can be bothered. Mo Bacter seems to be the treatment to use; it doesn't just kill the moss, it digests it so you don't have unsightly black moss left. But scarifying is also necessary to pick it up. Here's what I think was one of the best descriptions of how to do it all:
dinny_g wrote: Fri Mar 07, 2025 2:01 pm
I'm bone idle lazy and was hoping for some short cuts...
In that case my advice would be... get a man in.
That's what I do, similar soil composition in Cheshire so moss is rife. I have a lawn treatment firm that come in, moss treatment, lawn feed, scarify, aerate etc. You need to be on it constantly it or the moss just comes right back
It doesn't take much effort if you've got a lawn mower with a collector. Just mow over the scarified/raked moss.
Even less work if you've got a ride on as you can just drag a scarifier and mow at the same time.
Our lawn is approx 80% moss, 18% daisies, 2% grass
Everything I’ve read makes it seem like a massive pain in the arse to do anything about it, and as about 99% of my time outside at home is spent fudging about with cars I’ve never bothered.
Annoyingly the grass at the barn, which was just a field cut once a year for 20 odd years and now mown once a month in growing season, is lovely in comparison.
Mito Man wrote: Fri Mar 07, 2025 5:42 pm
It doesn't take much effort if you've got a lawn mower with a collector. Just mow over the scarified/raked moss.
Even less work if you've got a ride on as you can just drag a scarifier and mow at the same time.
Indeed I could collect it, but I’ll be making a trip to the compost heap every time I turn round with the amount pulled out. Then I’ll have a pile of moss taller than my garage to deal with. Cannot be bothered.
Unimog is a much better idea but too tall to get to the garden
‘Gravel path!’ Lord Emsworth stiffened through the whole length of his stringy body. Nature, he had always maintained, intended a yew alley to be carpeted with a mossy growth. And, whatever Nature felt about it, he personally was dashed if he was going to have men with Clydeside accents and faces like dissipated potatoes coming along and mutilating that lovely expanse of green velvet. ‘Gravel path, indeed! Why not asphalt? Why not a few
hoardings with advertisements of liver pills and a filling-station? That’s what the man would really like.’
Angus McAllister, extending a foot that looked like a violin-case, pressed it on the moss. The meaning of the gesture was plain. It expressed contempt, dislike, a generally anti-moss spirit: and Lord Emsworth, wincing, surveyed the man unpleasantly through his pince-nez. Though not often given to theological speculation, he was wondering why Providence, if obliged to make head-gardeners, had found it necessary to make them so Scotch. In the case of Angus McAllister, why, going a step farther, have made him a human being at all? All the ingredients of a first-class mule simply thrown away. He felt that he might have like Angus McAllister if he had been a mule.
Lot of moss at Newt Towers I can tell you. There is a chunk of garden which I'm sure is atop old concrete and doesn't drain, so is reduced to bogland. I have emptied half a box of some branded lawn supplement over it in folorn hope this morning.
