[AlaninCarlisle]

I cut my front lawn today, hoping it would be the last time this year. It's quite a large one, about 30 metres x 20 metres. What really peeved me about it was the amount of moss, I suppose an inevitable result of all the rain we've had.

Question: would I be wasting my time by spreading lawn sand on it at this late stage of the season?

[Auntiemogs]

Wowzer - that's a huge lawn!   :ohmy

I'm no lawn expert, so all I can say is that if there is a lot of moss,  I (personally) would buy the lawn sand while it's a good price, and then treat the lawn next year.  I treated mine earlier in the year, and it did take some time to recover.....

[AlaninCarlisle]

Price of lawn-sand is a bit immaterial as I already bought two 25kg bags of it earlier this year. A local farm and amenity supplies dealer was selling it at £12 a sack which seemed such a good price that I bought two sacks.

Coming back to my question, I read somewhere that moss continues to grow throughout winter which is why I thought of spreading it on now

[Fairy Plotmother]

Price of lawn-sand is a bit immaterial as I already bought two 25kg bags of it earlier this year. A local farm and amenity supplies dealer was selling it at £12 a sack which seemed such a good price that I bought two sacks.

Coming back to my question, I read somewhere that moss continues to grow throughout winter which is why I thought of spreading it on now

I did my small lawn 2 weeks ago and have just started raking out the dead stuff. I did do it in the spring and it looked great over the summer, then all of a sudden I noticed the huge amount of moss again. I was gutted!

[AlaninCarlisle]

I suppose my other option is to attack the moss alone by using a ferrous sulphate solution dispensed from a watering can but given the area involved this could take hours

[JayG]

In the long term you need to discover why the moss has got the upper hand in the first place - the most common reason is poor drainage, but I can confirm that it can also thrive in poor, well-drained sandy soils like mine, where it out-competes the grass, especially in winter when the grass doesn't grow much anyway.

I have a fish pond next to my lawn so am reluctant to use chemicals, and simply feeding the lawn is very time consuming and needs doing regularly so can get expensive.
Basically I've given up with it (it is nice and springy to walk on and doesn't need cutting very often!)

With or without using a moss killer first, a powered scarifier will remove an astonishing amount of moss from your lawn, which in itself should help if there is an aeration problem, although properly tackling drainage issues takes a lot more effort unfortunately.

[AlaninCarlisle]

Yes, I have a petrol powered scarifier. I'm reluctant to use it at the end of the season though as it leaves the lawn looking quite distressed until new grass grows through.

There are a couple of very old trees, a holly tree and a fir tree on the lawn which don't help. However as they have been there at least 80 years they're staying put. Another contributory issue is that the lawn was originally a cobbled courtyard. There is just about 8" of soil over the cobbles so drainage might me an issue, although it's rare to see standing water.

I guess, my only option this time of year is the lawn-sand via a mechanical spreader as it'd take for ever with a watering can and Ferrous Sulphate solution

[jezza]

hi make sure that the lawn sand is low in nitrogen I use Thomas Elliots lawn sand with 1 percent nitrogen 9 percent sulphate of iron one bag does 850 square metres one bag should be ample for your lawn, it will probably need spiking then sharp sand rubbing in to keep the holes open, scarifying shouldn't harm the lawn if its gone over a couple of times with a rotary mower to pick up the rubbish and tidy any long ends up  jezza

[AlaninCarlisle]

Yes, my lawn sand is Elliot's too. If it stops raining tomorrow I'll spread it on and take it from there. If the blackened areas are not too profuse, I'll probably lightly scarify it

[muckyboots]

Hi,my lawns have moss they are very free draining but are in a shady area which results in the moss (I  don't want to remove them )I have found I can't get rid of it, tried for years  so its a manage it scenario, weed feed scarify.A bit of work but the results are worth it.