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How is your lawn looking? Mine has lately become distinctly boggy-looking. I’ve long put up with a little shady corner where there is more moss than grass. But I’ve now realised that those light green mossy areas have been taking over.
There are patches of the spongy, ground-hugging plants replacing up to a quarter of the grass in total, spoiling the look of my once-uniform verdant sward.
Mine is not the only garden where moss is running rampant. The weather over the past year has been perfect for encouraging moss growth in lawns, said Leigh Hunt, horticultural adviser at the Royal Horticultural Society.
But rather than leading the charge to protect our lawns, the RHS has some surprising advice. Instead, the organisation says we should learn to love our mossy gardens, both for the sake of the environment, and – given the direction of climate change – for an easier life.
The past weather means my moss invasion should not be surprising. First there was the unusually dry spring and summer of 2025, which meant that many lawns went brown and grass started dying, leaving patches of bare earth ripe for colonisation.
Then we had a winter that was milder than average, which let moss keep growing when grass was still more dormant. “It has a competitive advantage over the slowly growing grass,” said RHS spokesperson Gina Miller.
Lastly, we have had one of the soggiest ever starts to the year, with some areas having their highest ever rainfalls for January and their longest spell of consecutive rainy days. “Moss can grow in quite low temperatures as long as it’s moist,” said Hunt.
Kill with chemicals
The traditional approach to a moss invasion is to apply moss killer to the lawn. This contains iron sulphate, which causes the moss to turn black and die off within days. Grass, which has longer roots, should be unaffected if the correct amount is used.
The dead moss then needs to be raked out or there will be unsightly black patches.
The RHS would prefer that we use different methods, partly because of the carbon-intensive nature of making garden chemicals such as moss killer. It recommends a biological control method, which involves applying a lawn product with bacteria, which eat moss. This has the other advantage that the dead moss doesn’t need to be raked out.
The other hitch with iron-based moss killer is that people may use too much, and this can end up blackening their grass too, says Hunt.
A longer-term approach advised by the RHS is to reduce waterlogging in the lawn, by creating holes in the grass, using a garden fork and scattering sand over the area to improve drainage. This sounds like a lot of work considering how much of my lawn has been taken over.
Although, I have discovered some clever products promising to make the aeration process easier, including overshoes with spikes on the soles that let you walk the holes into the lawn, and a spiked roller on a long handle that looks a bit like a medieval torture instrument.
Garden birds will love your mossy lawn (Photo: Sandra Standbridge/Getty Images/Moment RF)But is this creating unnecessary work for myself? It seems to go against the current movement for more biodiverse gardens that are less perfect-looking, for instance by having areas of longer grass and wildflowers.
“The whole attitude to lawns has changed,” said Hunt. “We are seeing much more relaxed lawns in front and back gardens.”
This applies to moss too. A pure grass lawn is a monoculture, said Hunt. A mossy-grass mix supports more tiny invertebrates – such as caterpillars that feed directly on moss – which provide food for larger animals, like birds. Birds also love moss for their nests and may be seen tugging it out to take away.
Mossy lawns are the future
Whatever you decide about your own lawn, it needs to be something you’re happy to do long-term, as we can expect future conditions to be even more welcoming to moss.
In the UK, climate change is predicted to make winters milder and wetter, with summers hotter and drier – just like in the past 12 months. “Plants that are getting an ecological advantage are going to do best,” said Hunt.
In fact, moss could even help your lawn stay better looking if summers are dry. “Moss stays greener than grass as we go into summer. So it keeps it looking OK for a bit longer.”
Hunt has started to convince me I shouldn’t bother waging a war against lawn moss – although I don’t want it to take over any more than it already has. So it looks like I need to order some spiked shoe aerators and get walking.
I’ve also written
Childbirth safety scandals in NHS hospitals are rarely out of the news, and a national inquiry into maternity services is ongoing. Dr Lorin Lakasing, an obstetrician and expert witness in medical malpractice cases, has her own proposals for how to make childbirth in the NHS safer for all. Here are the four biggest problems and how she would fix them.
I’ve been reading
I have been eagerly waiting for the latest Anne Tyler novel to come out in paperback as she is one of my all-time favourite writers and I’ve read every single one of her previous 25 novels.
This one, Three Days in June: A Novel, tells of an older couple reassessing their relationship as their daughter prepares for marriage. Unlike many other successful authors after a long and garlanded writing career, Tyler has not gone off the boil, and her latest novel is just as charming and captivating as her previous works. I was only sad that this one was on the short side.
If you haven’t tried anything by Tyler before, two of my favourites are Ladder of Years and The Accidental Tourist.
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