Get rid of moss?

[crepesuzette]

Does anyone have any ways of getting rid of moss from a gravelled area? I wondered whether salt would work? Not possible just to rake it up as all the gravel would come away with it.

[Davie Crockett]

Sounds like you have a damp/drainage problem. Even if you kill it, you'll still have to remove it (and the gravel will still probably come with it).

Is it in a shaded area? It may be possible to fork through the gravel to improve aeration.

Is it a garden feature or a driveway. If it's a garden feature, you could encourage moss growth over stone objects or pave over it leaving gaps for the moss to fill.

[Odsox]

I get rid of moss from the path and steps to my greenhouse by spraying it with a solution of bleach, but as Davie Crockett says I still have to remove the dead moss. The benefit of doing that is it's easy to sweep up and it stops it regrowing for a while.

[crepesuzette]

Thanks for the replies. The moss is in the courtyard in front of my house, shade in the morning, sun in the afternoon. Its a very damp site, not helped by the gravel being sprinkled on to about an inch of weak tarmac so there is very little drainage. Its difficult to dig through although I have managed to break up some of the tarmac to create some flower beds. I suspect the whole lot needs lifting and drainage put in, meanwhile the moss seems to be taking over. Its particularly bad at the moment as we've had a lot of rain; in the summer it dries to a frazzle and can easily be lifted off.

[boboff]

Why do you want rid of it?

Glysophate would kill it all back no bother.

If you did this and then got some "sub base" (it is a byproduct of most quarrying and costs £9 a tonne plus delivery round these parts) you could then hire a whacker plate and flatten this new surface on top of the gravel at about 2" this would then give you a cheap flat less permeable surface where the moss might not like it so much.

[Mrs Moustoir]

It is funny you should mention moss! We've also got it growing over our gravelled drive and this has never happened in the 10 years we've had the house. The house faces due south and the drive slopes away from the house towards the west and the drainage fosse and it gets the sun all day. We've no drainage problems and it seems to me that the high humidity and weeks of relentless rain have given moss the perfect growing conditions this year.

If it bothers you, the bricos sell some noxious moss killers that you can either spray on or water on with a watering can. Moss shouldn't really like a south facing aspect so lets hope we get a decent summer next year to burn it away.

[crepesuzette]

Why do I want to get rid of it? Because it traps the moisture in an already damp area and then other weeds start growing around it and the front of my house looks a mess. I have spent hours hand weeding this year but eventually gave up and sprayed the gravel with weedkiller. Only the moss has survived! Roll on next summer.....

[boboff]

Oh, spray it again, it's not survived, it's just new.