Single hen

[Chickens@61]

Morning,

 

I am on a three day weekend this week and I have been out doing some gardening.. Just noticed our front lawn is hardly any lawn and lots of bright green spongy moss (or similar)

 

Any tips? Do I need to put on a 'feed n weed' type treatment and then reseed the bald patches? or is it more complicated than that! Also, is now the right time to start this?

 

Any advice very gratefully received,

[Redwing]

You can get lawn mosskiller stuff so could try that

 

Shady lawns often get mossy so taking lower limbs off of overhanging trees can get more light in (note some trees are protected and cannot be trimmed without permission!) Trimming back a hedge may help too

 

If its a small shaded lawn you might want to consider not having a lawn as you might be fighting a losing battle

 

If its not badly shaded it could be that the lawn is simply not strong enough to hold off the moss so you need to build it up a bit:

 

Start by either killing off the moss with a moss killer or by s"Ooops, word censored!"ing all of the moss out with a spring tined rake

 

Then get some air in to the soil by aerating (sp?) it (push a garden fork in to the ground or use a special aerator to make holes

 

Brush on some lawn sand and make sure the holes are filled

 

sprinkle some compost on really bare areas

 

throw some lawn seed down (or feed the rest of the lawn and hope it recovers and fills the gaps but don't do both at the same time)

 

Water in and hopefully the lawn will thicken up nicely and keep the moss at bay!

 

Good luck!

[Valkyrie]

We get a lot of moss - it's all to do with badly drained ground. You can weed and feed as much as you like, but if you don't look after the soil you will have the same problem all the time (our soil is yuk and we are always pricking holes in it, but eventually we WILL win). The thing to do is to make holes with a garden fork all over, wiggle it around and brush grit or sand (which sort I'm not too sure) into the holes. You can buy or hire special equipment to make bigger holes - don't bother, our clay just clogged up the holes every time it was pushed into the ground. That would be the best thing to do. The moss can be raked up/scarified (I think that's the term for it) or in our case, the girls have done such a brill job of it that all OH does is go round and collect the piles! Voila - home made moss for hanging baskets! Well, helps a bit anyway!

You can get moss killer in the feed and weed stuff - but it is poisonous I gather. Then you get big black patches all over the place! Yes, you can then reseed if necessary.

Now is a good time because the grass is growing really quickly now, but don't leave it too late, and remember to water it in if we get a dry spell. We don't bother with weed and feed, a little seaweed meal now and again, but I like the egg 'n bacon flowers, daisies and the self heal and clover in the grass.

[Chook n Boo Mum]

The chooks are doing a great job on our lawn, try fencing them in over the bad bits, then once they've scratched & scrabbled around, and given a dose of fertilizer, you could do the fork hole routine & reseed.

 

Sha x

[Chickens@61]

thank you for the tips so far.. it is a large lawn and not particuarly shady, so it sounds like the soil may be the problem.

 

i wouldn't dare let the girls out there, as the problem lawn is our front garden, although i am sure they would make short work of the moss problem if they did get the chance!

 

i will definatley try some of the 'tlc for lawns' tips given, and see if i can rescue the grass,

 

thanks everyone

[bluekarin]

Our front garden had a lawn but it was mainly moss as it was shady until mid afternoon. We also have chalky ground with a very thin layer of soil so we dug all the moss/grass and replaced it with bark and have turned it into more of a woodland garden. I even have a beautiful unplanted plant with white flowers that comes up every year, presumably from the bark!

[Saronne]

The chooks are doing a great job on our lawn, try fencing them in over the bad bits, then once they've scratched & scrabbled around, and given a dose of fertilizer, you could do the fork hole routine & reseed.

 

Sha x

 

My hens have done a great job of scratching up the moss...natural born scarifiers!

 

Saronne x

[mostin]

We used to have more moss than lawn but the chooks have scratched it all out for us . We are just having to re-seed all the bald patches now .