Should I rip out moss patches all the time or wait until autumn?

Large moss patches are made really obvious whenever I cut the grass short. Should I rip them out now and reseed (with a bit of top soil) or wait until the "big" moss killing/scarifying/top dressing autumn treatment?

 

I would wait a month longer tim091
Treat the moss in late August, scarify in first week of September and then reseed.
I like to top dress the soil after scarifying and reseeding too

 

Thanks mate. I will follow your wisdom

 

Tim, there’s a product called Mo Bacter which you may be interested in. If the lawn can be watered in the drier weather you could apply this. In a very simple term it eats away the moss and feeds the grass.
Here’s a link but you maybe able to find it cheaper so it’s just a link showing the product.
MO Bacter Organic Lawn Fertiliser

You need to apply it at full strength but it does not scorch like the more commonly found fertilisers. It will need to be watered in but I’ve had very good results with this.
Unlike iron that turns moss black this will eat away at the moss but they do claim you don’t need to scarify but we know scarifying helps to improve turf.
It may take a few applications and we are a tad late in the season but you may find you will not need to over seed the area.
If you are top dressing each year and suffer moss issues perhaps it’s worth finding out what’s going on and create a turf treatment program to tackle the issue and improve the situation.
If you could post a picture it would help too.

 

Thanks @Liz the pot. I applied Mo Bacter in the spring after Iron Sulphate did nothing to kill my moss. You gave me loads of advice then in another thread.

I do indeed have underlying problems that make moss thrive: shaded, poorly drained, major tree roots.

Pic shows the whole right side of the lawn is very mossy.



I am thinking that I will Iron Sulphate in early autumn (as I have loads of the stuff left!) then scarify a couple of weeks later, top dress and seed.

 

Ah so did the iron kill off the moss before applying MO. If so MO will not eat away moss that was treated with iron.
Did the iron work as intended?
Did you apply it at the given rate?

I’m just off to work, I’ll have a good look when home. Only one job in this heat!

 

Wow that’s hot, I’m not venturing out till later.

ok the best thing here is to aerate the lawn if you plan on reseeding it if you believe or can see a drainage issue or you have compaction. You can hire the machine or have a company in to do the work. Then dress it with soil and sand mixture to aid the drainage. You can purchase the mix and should be able to find some one local.
That alone may not fix the issue though but it’s a good starting point and the lawn will be better for it.
You could slit the turf if your scarifier is able to. You basically go in deep but it depends on the machine but this is best done later in the season and it’s the same with aerating as you will be applying seed and need it to be cooler and wetter.
It’s up to you if you also scarify but a good aerator takes a good chunk of the thatch out.
I’ve included a photo of a job I did where I sliced in deep as the conditions were perfect for the work. This was completed during spring a few years back in this photo.

Normally iron when applied hits the moss and deters it so I'm wondering why the iron made no difference. There is a rare and I mean a very rare reason it fails but that’s if the grass does not green up.
Did the grass green up when you used the iron?
It should however make no difference to tackling moss. It could be the mixture was incorrect and not enough applied, conditions at time.
Do you know who or what it’s called?

Have you fed the lawn?

You could try aerating just that area if you don’t want to go ahead with the whole lawn. You can purchase tools with hollow tines, and I know you can put a fork in but solid tines on some soil types create compaction round the insert but you could try a small area.

Raise your cut, or at least raise it in that area.

Just remember that if you treat it with iron the MO will not work with the moss side of the product .

 

Thanks for your advice; always really helpful.

Iron was this Pro-Kleen Iron Sulphate.

I mixed it at 5g per litre as per instructions (35g in my 7 litre watering can) and roughly marked out 7 metre strips to apply each watering can load to. It did green up the grass and may have got some of the moss, but with the underlying conditions I think it is a tough nut to crack in one spring treatment.

The Iron and the Mo was back in the spring. I have recently fed with A1 Lawn Fertiliser which made a fantastic difference to the greening and growth rate within a few days.

I think compaction and shade is the problem as even after a few days of strong sun the soil is still wet just below the surface.

Bottom line is that I only started working on the lawn this spring and already it is looking a lot better than last year. I figure this autumn will give me a chance to tackle some of the remaining issues (moss/thatch/compaction).

 

So your granular contains fe iron and you applied iron too and there’s a bit of seaweed in the granular but I can’t see the makeup so it will be a low percentage as a guess.
With all these treatments the moss is still active. It may be due to that warm wet period we went through a while back.
The granular will green up due to the bit of fe included and it’s N level promotes growth as well as impacting on the colour. I wish the company would provide more details on their site so I can see the product label and sheets.
It’s fine though
With iron you can go over their recommendation, it can though blacken the turf short term but that’s not a product I’ve used so can’t comment on it but it’s not concentrated like others as it’s 1000ltr covers 1000m2.

Sul-Fe | Moss Control for Lawns | Sulphate of Iron - ProGreen

This for example covers the same but look at how the water volume compares so you do need a knapsack to apply it as the spring label is 40ltrs for 1000m2. There’s quite a few available similar to this plus ones with N added and other elements.

It’s looking ok, I’m sure you will crack it but I think it may be a case of aerating and scarifying then dressing the lawn. Just note it may not solve the moss problem but it will help and you should be able to easily cope with it.

 

Thanks very much. Here is label from A1 fertiliser for info.

 

Looks fine to me.

 

It certainly greened up the lawn and gets great reviews on Amazon.

 

If it works it’s a winner. It looks like they have added the seaweed content across the board.
There are so many fertilisers on the market, lots vary to do various jobs but for a general purpose fertiliser it’s fine.
I would think the product is supplied from one of the many manufactures out there for them as they are classed as a service, that’s where a data sheet let’s you know who manufactures it but they don’t list it sadly.
99% of all fertilisers work as intended, it’s normally when the end users fails to apply it correctly that it gets a hammer.
Last year I used miracle gro lawn feed and empathy seaweed in a miracle gro sprayer on my companions lawn and while it worked out more expensive the results were great.
This year I’m trying out new fertilisers.