Lawn - becoming only moss!

[SoTiredNeedHoliday]

Should I do anything now? Grass is getting eaten up with moss taking over completely. Last year I scarified and aerated etc but i didn't get rid of all moss, and now looking at it moss is just everywhere

We got rid of it all the moss in our lawns a couple of years ago, it was absolutely back breaking and it was all back within 12 months.

It's green like the rest of the lawn so I'm leaving it now.

Either decide to enjoy the moss or get a lawn company in.

Trying to DIY lawn repair was a lot of work and still wasn't as good as the professionals.

It's just a constant thing you have to keep on top of each spring and autumn. I was just thinking the same about min but I plan to scarify in a couple of months or so just before the time when grass seed will germinate so it isn't bare and muddy for too long.

We had this and husband spread moss killer on it but nearer to the summer. Think it was early May. You then rake up all the dead stuff . I have photos somewhere. Reseed then. It was absolutely brilliant afterwards!

Scarify it yearly and at the opposite end of the season sprinkle one of the proprietory moss killers. It's hard work at first, but after a couple of years of severe scarifying you'll have killed off most of it and be left with just having the sprinkle the moss killer every year to keep getting rid of it.

If you can't scarify it properly and severe enough yourself, get a gardener to come and do it for you - preferably with a scarifying machine (or you could hire one yourself from somewhere like Hartley tool hire).

I'd suggest not using a professional lawn firm to sprinkle moss killer - we've had a couple of them and the results were pretty poor. It needs a good scarifying if it's really bad - sprinkling alone won't do it, however "strong" they claim their mixture is!

I read a really interesting piece a while back about green lawns being a kind of societal ball and chain. People use them to judge the owners rather like how white their nets are at the window

. Anyway, the writer suggested we embrace more natural plants for green lawns we don't need for sitting on. So this year, for my front garden (that I can never sit in because that's against the social laws) I'm leaving it mossy, sprinkling clover and daisy seeds and letting it go.

Moss lawns are beautiful and a lot nicer than boring grass!

The moss is out competing the grass for some reason.

Instead of laying a turf grass mix try clover instead or a clover / grass mix. Moss dies off in the summer whereas clover is evergreen, flowers so is great for pollinators and depending on the variety only needs cutting twice a year as it only grows about 6 inches.

Giant clover is wonderful but not suitable if football etc is played on the grass, you'll want a micro version instead

I love moss so am delighted that year by year it is taking over the lawn.Just leave it. It's beautiful

I used to have a company in, but they just did things according to their timetable, not according to what the lawn needed. I now do it myself following advice on here https://www.lawnsmith.co.uk/lawn-care-advice/. You can hire a lawnraker from most tool hire places for not very much and they make the raking and scarifying very easy. You can buy one for around £50.

Unless you can correct the underlying problems (may be poor drainage, lack of light, etc) then you'll have to keep doing it, but once it's under control it's really no more than a couple of sessions a year.

Moss and grass want different things. Moss is happy with damp, poor drainage, a bit of shade, acid soil and soil that’s not particularly rich. Grass likes reasonable drainage, sunshine, reasonable nutrition. If moss grows happily in your garden then you can kill it off but grass still won’t like it and it’s likely the moss will come back.

So you can live with the moss, or you can see what you can do to change the conditions so moss is unhappy and grass is happy. Basically drainage and sunshine.

Moss is a symptom of poor growing conditions. There's no point in treating or trying to get rid off the moss without dealing with the cause of the problem. It is either going to be a drainage issue, incorrect soil condition or lack of light.

That's why grass won't grow very well there, but moss will. That's what you have to tackle, and unless you do, then the moss will keep coming back.

My dear old dad always had a company to come and spray the lawn, and it was perfect - not a scrap of moss. When he died and I was preparing the house for sale, I knocked off the lawn-spraying because it was quite expensive and, in my total ignorance, I thought it was unnecessary. Big mistake. Bang! Instant moss. Rampaging, out-of-control, all-over moss. I don't know what that company were putting on it, but it certainly did the trick.

I'm thinking of putting in some chunky rocks and making it a Japanese moss garden.

Don't cut grass too low. On GQT the moss question comes up a lot.
We got an electric lawn rake for £30 quid and did front and back.
Get a garden fork in to relieve any compaction.
Evergreen is brilliant and it smells like the sea because of the seaweed in it.
Buy grass seed that match the type of lawn you have . You can get seed for shady patches and high traffic areas.
Top dress seed with compost to deter the ' fucking pigeons' .
Keep watering the seed.
Scatter seed everytime you walk past a bald/seeded spot if you can.
All this is GQT advice and it's worked for us.
And we've got clay based soil.
ETA we use 'fucking pigeons' to describe them.
No expletives on GQT.

My front garden is oddly mossy, wheras my back lawn is fine.
I embrace the moss! It's really green, even in drought and it rarely needs mowing.

And it is AMAZINGLY bouncy. You never read that as a benefit.

Agree with the posters above who have said that we have found ourselves locked into a weird societal rule that the green space around our houses must be a single species grass monoculture which is both a bully and incredibly needy.

l have no problem with a mossy lawn, it’s green, it feels nice underfoot. Doesn’t need mowing every week or having poisons bought and chucked at it. The mowing is always needed on that one nice dry sunny evening in the week when I’d rather been lying on the the moss than hoofing a mower about the place 😆

You can just teach yourself to like the moss.

If your lawn is all moss then getting rid of it is backbreaking and you have to do it every year.

The lawn companies scarify and aerate so much more effectively than you can do yourself.

But ultimately if you are getting 90% moss then it just isn't a habitat grass wants to grow in. This might be something you can change by cutting back trees or shrubs to reduce shade, but if changing the habitat would involve knocking your house down your best bet is to give up on the lawn and do something that likes shade. Which might be enjoy the moss.

The usual moss in lawns is Rhytidiadelphus squarrosus, also known as “springy turf moss”

Get 'greenthumb' or similar in to sort it out

Or maybe rather than removing something that's not harmful to replace it with grass (which is useless unless you have a grazing animal) we can embrace the moss and stop turning garden into sterile squares?

Years ago I was told you can’t get rid off the moss unless you change the underlying soil. It will come back if you kill it for that reason. Our wet summers just encourage more moss.

Well I never knew that!
Very well-named in that case.

@MontyDonsBlueScarf thank you that website seems like it is really useful, the instructions sound easy enough to be able to do.

For those saying I should just embrace moss, its not my thing and doesn't suit my garden. I can appreciate some love it though