If you're having trouble with moss taking over your lawn, it’s normally a sign that the condition of your lawn soil is not the best for grass to grow. As a result, moss is growing in places where you'd rather have grass grow.
Moss can be caused by one of several factors, including low soil pH, a lack of necessary nutrients in the soil, poor drainage, excessive shade, or a combination of a few.
If you’re wondering how you get rid of that moss that's in your lawn naturally, without harming your grass, you’ll be happy to know that as you change the conditions of your soil to prevent moss, you'll also be optimizing the soil to better grow grass.
Here are our favourite tips for getting rid of moss, fast:
Baking Soda Method
Applying a mixture of baking soda and water to your garden’s moss will make the conditions more alkaline, and since moss prefers a slightly acid environment, this will help to kill the moss. This method works best on small patches of moss. As it’s completely natural, it won't hurt the environment. Just make sure to wear a pair of gloves to prevent skin irritation.
Just make as diluted of a mixture as 1 tablespoon baking soda to 1 gallon of water, or, if the moss is really bad, add dry baking soda straight to the moss. For small patches, start with 3 tablespoons of baking soda to 1 quart of water. Then gradually increase if the moss doesn’t respond.
You can apply this moss killing solution almost any time of the day and any season during the year, but it’s best applied during the late afternoon when the grass is dry during the winter or early spring. You might need to apply it two or three times over the course of a week or two to get rid of the moss completely and kill it at its roots.
After the moss has died, rake it up carefully and discard it in your gardening bin.
Soap Method
The baking soda mentioned might be effective as a short-term solution, but you can achieve longer-term success by mixing 3-4 ounces of dish soap with 1 gallon of water and spraying the mixture generously onto the moss patch.
Lime Method
Unlike baking soda and water, lime doesn't directly kill moss very quickly. Instead, lime helps to balance out the pH of the soil and make it slightly alkaline, and since moss prefers a slightly acidic environment, applying lime regularly over time can help to kill off moss over the course of several months. It’ll also make the soil more inhabitable for grass.
Increase Your Garden’s Exposure To Sunlight
As moss prefers minimal sunlight, you may notice the mossiest patches in your lawn are those that are in shady areas. If that's the case, make sure to trim any trees or other plants that could be causing excessive shade.Â
You could also replace your grass with a more shade-tolerant grass type, which may help to curb your moss issue.
Don't Water Your Lawn As Often
If you're someone who regularly waters your lawn, the growth of moss is probably a sign that you're watering too much. Decrease your quantity of watering and see if that stops the moss from spreading. If it does, simply carry out the baking soda method to remove the od moss, and providing you stick to a less frequent watering schedule, no new moss should form.
Improve Your Lawn’s Drainage
If your lawn only gets water from rain, and yet it still seems to be unusually damp, you may need to improve the drainage in the lawn. It’s simple enough to create ditches or canals to direct the water into a larger ditch or a pond, but when your lawn is too small for this solution, you can try aerating it instead.
Aerate Your Lawn
As any groundsman or gardener would tell you, simply poking holes in your lawn can dramatically help water to drain properly, if done right. When you create holes in the ground, it gives rainwater a place to go.Â
It also prevents soil compaction due to foot traffic, which is another cause of poor drainage. You could even fill in the holes with sand to make the soil more absorbent.
Conclusion
Ultimately, if you have a moss problem in your lawn, you first need to figure out what could be preventing grass from growing properly in the first place. That’s the only way you’ll keep the moss away for good, after using the methods in this video to get rid of it in the short-term.
If you ultimately want to go down the commercial route to remove your moss then check out some of the best selling products –
- Scotts MossEx kills moss, not lawns and helps develop thick grass
- Best applied during winter or spring when the lawn is moist and tall grass has been mowed to expose low-growing moss
- This moss control product also contains nutrients to green your lawn
- Apply using a Scotts broadcast, rotary, drop, or Wizz spreader
- Products quick results
- Kills moss and promotes greener grass
- Does not harm lawn
- Contains 32.0-percent ferrous sulfate monohydrate and 68.0-percent calcium carbonate
- Kills moss and thickens grass to help prevent future moss problems
- Contains nutrients to green your lawn
- Apply in winter or spring when moss is actively growing, for use on all grass types
- Easy to use shaker jug is ideal for smaller spaces or spot treatments