Lawn is mostly moss!
Sarah45
Posts: 2
Hi,
Have just moved into a new house and has a lovely size garden with a large lawn. However on closer inspection a lot of the lawn seems to actually be moss!
The top left corner especially is virtually all moss and it appears down the garden in other areas too. I have visions of having a moss covered back garden in a few months so think I best do something about it!
What is my best course of action at this time of the year? Google suggests Autumn is a good time to plant grass seed so am I best to kill the moss, get rid and put grass seed down ASAP?
If so can anyone recommend a pet-friendly moss killer as I have a dog?
Do i just start with the big top left corner and cordon that off or do I do all the little patches everywhere else too? I need a little bit of lawn at least that is useable for the dog.
These are probably very silly questions but I'm a bit clueless on these things as this is the first time in my life I've ever had a garden of any kind. Lived in London previously so my only past gardening experience is looking after a pot of basil!
Posts
Hi Sarah45 and welcome. Lawns can be tricky things. You can spend every minute of your day tending them if you want a bowling green or you can go the wildflower meadow route and everything in between! Most people just want a patch of green stuff.
My front lawn is mostly moss and clover with the odd dandelion and whatnot thrown in. From a distance it looks green and neatish and tidyish.
If you want to do something now you could get a grass rake or similar and remove the thatch (carpety bit) that has built up over the season. You can remove a lot of the moss by doing this as well. "Comb"the grass in two different directions, preferably not in the direction you mow. I would be reluctant to start by killing the moss as you may find yourself with no green at all. That's what would happen to mine!
Your lawn will look a bit scruffy for a while but it'll be fine. Apply an autumn lawn feed and wait til Spring. If you're very keen you could spike it all over to aid aeration and drainage but that's hard work.
In Spring reassess and see what it needs. If there are bald patches then they could be dealt with. It may have improved enough for you to be happy with it.
If it's for dogs and playing then I wouldn't be super fussy and "mostly green" might work for you. If you want to go the bowling green route then you have a lot of hard work ahead!
I'll be doing the combing thing!
I'll just add that, if it's mostly moss, it's probably quite shady. A treatment of weed and feed in spring will help (you can do this a few times ) and regular mowing through the season - not too short - encourages the grass to spread sideways and become stronger.
Removing the dead moss and thatch (as ppauper has outlined) will leave large areas needing reseeded. Spring is best for this because it's too late for it to germinate now, so you'd be wasting time and money. Use a seed specifically for shade, if that's the main issue. You'll be surprised how quickly it'll improve
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Thanks for the replies.
I'm certainly not fussed about having a bowling green lawn. Main use for it is going to be for the dog right now and then hopefully in the near future as somewhere for our future kids to play.
I think if I removed the moss I would have virtually no green in the top left quarter of the garden and quite a few big-ish patches elsewhere. I'm fine with leaving the moss as it is to be honest. I just didn't think that was an option. I just kinda assumed moss = bad. Wont it take over the whole lawn eventually if I leave it?
The top left of the garden is pretty shady for a lot of the day so yeah that is what is causing it I imagine. I'd have no problem with just leaving that part of the lawn as moss as long as it wasn't going to spread through the whole lawn.
Would the consensus be to just leave it then and maybe keep an eye on it and see if it starts spreading to then do something about it?
BTW when I say large lawn it is about 11 or 12 fence panels long which is absolutly enormous for me but might not be large by normal gardener standards!
It'll only spread if the tree canopy gets bigger - shade's one of the main reasons for lots of moss - compaction and poor drainage being the others. I'd leave it and maybe just use some weed and feed in spring and keep it regularly mown as already suggested.
If you have plenty of lawn available for dog and future kids (
) it's not really going to be an issue. 
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
I leave the moss in my grass. It looks better than dry grass in the summer anyway. I quite like the violets , daisies and clover as well. It's much more interesting than grass. Anything that grows too high get a lopped off by the lawnmower. I pick out the plantain though because nothing grows under the leaves.