Moss can start to take over shady spots in the yard. Is it worth trying to remove?

• Share

PRINT

It’s almost spring, and you’re imagining an emerald green lawn. After a rain shower, you follow the rainbow to find moss and clover in your yard. Is this the luck o’ the Irish?

Mosses naturally occur when the soil is compacted, acidic, and/or poorly drained. They also thrive in medium to dense shade or if there is repeated mower scalp of lawn turf. Under such conditions, these simple plants are very hardy and can increase rapidly.

If you want to reduce or eliminate moss, you must alter the growing conditions to make them hospitable for turfgrass.

Core aeration helps with compaction. Performing a soil test will let you know if you need to change the pH; mosses prefer a pH around 5.5, while turfgrass grows best in soil with a pH of 6.2. Installing drainage or regrading the yard will reduce soggy spots.

You can add more light to the area by removing tree limbs or full trees. Using a push mower, rather than a ride-on with a wide deck, or regrading the yard can reduce shearing the turfgrass to the ground, something that makes it more hospitable for moss to move in.

Other methods for moss control include removing it by hand or adding desiccants, such as lime, and other compounds marketed for moss suppression.

Licensed professional applicators can use Carfentrazone-ethyl on home lawns. A more environmentally friendly option includes creating a spray of one ounce of lemon-scented dish detergent per quart of water. Changing the conditions is the only way, though, to keep moss from returning.

If you like moss

On the other hand, you can also adjust your mindset about moss. You may find moss to be magical.

Moss acts as erosion control, and provides an attractive aesthetic to a woodland setting. Moss does well with shade-loving shrubs and deciduous trees.

If you want to promote the moss already growing in your yard, do not change the conditions, and remove the grass by hand or by using a product with glyphosate. Keep the area free of debris such as leaves, twigs and acorns.

Local resident Norie Burnet, known nationally for her moss garden, suggests that a leaf blower removes leaves and spreads moss spores at the same time.

There are some caveats with growing moss. It does not do as well under conifers, and cannot withstand heavy foot traffic (or too many Irish jigs). It is much more difficult to establish moss where none currently exists.

However, there are methods for transplantation. The Virginia Cooperative Extension Publication 430-536 “Lawn Moss: Friend or Foe?” offers suggestions and instructions. It’s available online at https://pubs.ext.vt.edu/430/430-536/430-536.html.

Clover, over and over

You probably didn’t intentionally plant clover, but maybe impish leprechauns did.

For most homeowners, clover is considered a weed. (A weed is defined as a plant out of place.) Aesthetically, many people prefer uniformity in a lawn, rather than one with a parade of white clover flowers.

Unless there’s a patch of four-leaf clovers in your yard (the frequency of four-leaf clovers has been estimated at one in 10 thousand clovers), you may want to reduce the clover.

Because white clover spreads with stolons (i.e., runners) above the soil in addition to seeds, it is usually managed, not eradicated. You can dig up small patches or use herbicides.

Spring is a good time to treat perennial broadleaf weeds such as clover as they are actively growing. To control clover, apply a three-way herbicide that includes 2,4-D, dicamba and mecoprop (MCPP), or use Triclopyr in tall fescue lawns.

Non-selective herbicides such as glyphosate can be used for spot treatments; however, they can kill nearby desirable grasses and plants.

Fostering a thick stand of turfgrass is one of the best methods of lawn weed control.

As an alternative to viewing clover as a weed however, you may want to incorporate clover into your lawn. Traditionally, white clover was considered an integral component of a lawn because it allows nitrogen to be available for use by other plants.

You may still find some residential seed mixes that include both grass and clover. Farmers often plant white clover for pastures or as a cover crop rather than leave a field fallow.

In your home lawn, you may want to establish a flowering bee lawn (also known as a bee garden or bee meadow) as an alternative to fescue including white clover. Clover attracts pollinators, particularly bees. (You’ve probably enjoyed white clover honey.)

If your neighborhood covenants allow, overseed established lawns of cool- or warm-season turfgrasses with white clover and other flowering plants that provide nectar and pollen. You will attract an abundance of pollinators.

Moss and clover may be your magically delightful lucky charms.

Lela Martin is a Master Gardener with the Chesterfield County office of the Virginia Cooperative Extension.