Got any moss growing on your patio, deck, steps, maybe even your roof?
Here is a close up of the moss growing between the cracks in the bricks of my patio. Holly
Patio Moss
Holly, thanks for starting this thread.
I've had these pics for a couple days and didn't know what to do with them lol.
This one is not as artistically shot as yours but I think it's the same kind of moss.
Andy P
From last week in the rain.
Andy P
Thanks Andy, I was telling Joey that the picture is a result of all the encouragement and guidance I've been getting here on the Photo threads. I was really pleased with that picture and my little point and shoot can do a lot more than I realized. Thanks to all of you who have been so helpful and supportive.
I really like your moss pictures hopefully we'll get more I really like the Macro... Holly
Nice pics guys!!
We have that carpet moss growing all over the place. It has killed patches of our lawn, covered the bricks around the flower beds, the patio (which gets really slick in wet weather), over pots of flowers, covered our pea gravel walks and I finally found out what kills it. Vinegar. Put some vinegar in a spray bottle, sprayed it on a test patch and the next day the stuff was DEAD. In the spring, I am going to spray the heck out of it. Will have to till up large sections of our yard to get rid of it. Had a visitor from FL who wanted some to take back and plant under trees in his yard where nothing else would grow. Handed him a shovel and plastic bags and he helped himself. Would that he could have taken all of it. LIZ
Lovely, Holly Ann, that moss growing on your patio!
Sarahskeeper, yours looks also looks deliciously juicy after the rain!
I am a passionate moss-lover and do everything possible to encourage them to grow by creating ideal conditions for them.
I have a book that is very inspiring for moss-lovers : Moss-gardening; including Lichens, Liverwords and Other Miniatures by Georges Schenk.
Sorry to hear ,LCsgarden, that you really seem to hate your mosses!
I wish you would have a look at the picture of Wallaby1 that shows her gorgeous moss lawn in this thread:
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/669175/
If you still want to get rid of the mosses in your lawn, then the best solution is to alter the conditions in keeping in mind that mosses thrive in shady and humid conditions, usually in soils with low PH levels (acidic).
Perhaps the type of grass in your lawn is not suited for shady conditions ?
There are some specific mixtures of grass for shady conditions available in the market.
Even if you manage to kill the moss with vinegar, it will keep coming back, and you will have an endless fight with them. How does the grass likes the vinegar treatment ? I think at the end the vinegar might make your soil even more acidic.
LC2, I also use vinegar as a weed killer. It works best when used in strong sun. It will kill the grass, too.
This was a lush weed half an hour earlier, note the grass is dead too.
Andy P
I even think that the vinegar at the end does more harm to the grass than to the moss. I'm afraid that the moss will come back with even more vigour than before, as the soil gets more and more acidic with all that vinegar and most grasses don't like that. In fact Lc2garden, now I understand why you have so much moss everywhere! I might try your vinegar treatment to create more moss in my garden (LOL).
LC2sGarden;
Instead of killing off your moss why don't you capitalize on this asset?
Right now there is a good interest in mosses especially among terrarium and vivarium keepers. While most are dubious about native mosses most will try if they are clean of pesticides or fertilizers.
I am currently preparing a series of experiments with different mosses to see just which ones do best in a terrarium and will develop information on all as to what temperatures etc. that each does well in.
If you are interested in exploiting your resource and would like an assessment of your moss you can let me know. I am already scheduled for three different mosses at this time and will not be beginning the series for a couple of months.
I figure at least a month per moss depending on how it handles my critieria.
Also there are grasses that grow well in mosses. Check for grasses that like acidic soil. In fact outside among my mosses grasses are the weeds!!!
"It has killed patches of our lawn, covered the bricks around the flower beds, the patio (which gets really slick in wet weather), over pots of flowers, covered our pea gravel walks and I finally found out what kills it."
90% of the time, what actually happens when people say that "moss killed the lawn" is this: there are parts of your yard where grass won't grow well, but moss will grow well; as grass dies back because of poor growing conditions, moss moves in. Moss doesn't kill grass, it takes advantage of habitats that grass can't grow well in.
Interestingly, an analogous situation happens with grassland in the southwestern United States. If the area is overgrazed, shrubs like creosote bush move in. Ranchers have always blamed the creosote for killing grass; but overgrazing killed the grass, the creosote just moved into the empty ground afterward, and since cattle won't eat it, it did quite well.
Patrick Alexander