Moss is incredibly hard to handle once it gets a foothold in anyone’s lawn.  If you have spotted a patch of it growing in a lawn you need to act as soon as possible to limit the damage it can do.

Some people don’t realize that once moss gets started, it won’t let the grass grow in the area it is occupying.  Grass is pretty resilient stuff, but there is no doubt that moss is even more so.  The question is what do you do about it?

One good thing to remember for starters is that moss occurs in lawns that don’t receive the ideal conditions they need to look good all year round.  This means that if something is missing from a lawn – for example moisture or the right nutrients in the soil – you will be more likely to see moss growing as a result.

There are various products around that can kill moss but there is a lot you can do to make sure you get rid of it in other ways as well.  The first thing is to keep the lawns you tend to in as good a condition as possible.  For example it will help to rake them over regularly because all lawns have dead grass lying in them – particularly if you don’t take adequate care of them.  Dead grass can lead to a lawn getting what is known as thatch – and this in turn can lead to moss.  Make sure you rake the grass regularly to get rid of all this dead material.

If you think about what moss loves (I’ll reveal the answer in just a moment) you will realize that you need to deprive it of these conditions.  For example it loves damp and moist conditions, so if you let a lawn get waterlogged it will take full advantage of it.  The solution to this is to aerate it regularly; you can buy special shoes that you strap on and walk around the lawn with.  These have spikes in the bottom so they are a nice and easy way of aerating it effectively.

Keeping lawns nice and short is another good thing to do.  Obviously you will them to look nice and neat anyway to appeal to the customer, but it will make it easier to keep an eye on the condition of the lawn when you are cutting it.

Of course there is also the option of using a proper treatment to get rid of moss.  There is nothing wrong with using these but the best course of action is to try the above techniques at the same time.  If you make the conditions harder for the moss to exist in as well as using the chemical treatment, you stand the best possible chance of success.

You now have the knowledge you need to rid every lawn of moss and prevent it from easily returning too.  This is an ongoing job but you’ll get great results if you keep at it.  Good luck!

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