What Time of Year is Best to Kill Moss?
You have three opportunities to kill moss in the lawn; spring, autumn and winter with spring being the best as moss is usually the worst at this time of year.
Moss Control in Spring
Conditions are usually ideal with moisture in the soil, dewy mornings, few weed seeds and air and soil temperatures on the rise.
Timing is very important; too early or too cold and your over seeding won’t germinate, and your existing grass won’t recover. In the meantime, the moss you’ve left behind is enjoying your slightly knackered lawn and spreading like wildfire putting you back at square one!!
Too late and the drier weather means harder worker to keep seed damp enough to germinate. Fortunately, this is not a small window of opportunity and as a guide for central England consider raking mid-March to mid-April with seed going in during April. In the south you can start earlier and in the north or Scotland you’ll be a week or two later.
Moss Control in Autumn
This would usually be combined with scarifying. Don’t know the difference between scarifying and raking? See Raking and Scarifying.
Once again timing is important. Commence just before or during the start of the rains and cooler temperatures. If it’s been a dry summer then starting in dry conditions will mean heavy watering over quite a period of time. The golden rule is to only conduct invasive lawn treatments when the grass is actively growing.
Conversely don’t leave it too late so that the cold prevents germination of your over-seeding.
Moss Control in Winter
During the cold winter months, the grass growth will be negligible and moss will be taking advantage of that and spreading rapidly. You can often see it happen over a few weeks usually in October as things get wetter and cooler. It is too cold at this time of year to consider removing the moss but you can suppress it with applications of ferrous sulphate based products or Moss-off. This can quite often mean your lawn makes it into spring with a minimal moss problem and you won’t need to kill and rake out the moss nor over-seed. What’s not to like?
How to Kill, Control and Remove Moss and Over-seed
- The main topic for these procedures is at Lawn Moss Control and Removal
- Answers to questions can be found in Moss in the Lawn
- For help with over-seeding go to Grass Seeding Techniques and Problems
- Enjoy the videos in How to Get Rid of Moss
Moss Control by Improving Lawn Care
'No lawn care' is often better than 'poor lawn care'. Good lawn care doesn’t necessarily mean more work, it just means working smart, a little knowledge and good timing.
Read these to get a better understanding of how a few simple things can reduce moss, improve your lawn whilst saving time and money
Moss Products for Spring, Autumn and Winter
More on Moss in the Lawn
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![How to get Rid of Moss in Spring]()
Moss in the LawnAfter a cool wet winter most lawns will be showing some moss. You may get away with simply killing the moss or need to rake and over sow with new grass seed.
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![Lawn Moss Control in Autumn]()
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Moss in the LawnWinter is the time of greatest threat to your lawn from moss because moss thrives in the cooler wetter weather whilst grass growth slows and can't fight back!
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