Garden guide
How to Get Rid of Moss in Your Lawn (and Keep It Gone)
Why moss moved in
Moss is a symptom, not the disease. It wins where grass struggles: shade, compacted soil, poor drainage, hungry or acidic ground, and mowing too short. Kill the moss without fixing the cause and it returns by next winter — guaranteed.
Step 1 — kill it
Apply a ferrous sulphate-based lawn moss killer (or a combined feed-and-moss-killer) on a calm, dry day with rain expected. The moss blackens over a week or two. Follow the pack rate — double-dosing scorches grass.
Step 2 — rake it out
Two weeks later, scarify or vigorously rake out the dead black moss. Be ruthless — it looks brutal but the lawn recovers fast. This is easiest in spring (April) or early autumn (September) when grass is growing strongly enough to fight back.
Step 3 — repair and thicken
Bare patches left after raking must be overseeded, or moss and weeds simply recolonise them. Sow at 15–25g per m², firm in, and keep moist. Our grass seed calculator works out the quantity from your patchy area.
Keeping it gone
Aerate compacted areas each autumn, feed the lawn in spring, raise your mowing height to 3–4cm (moss loves scalped lawns), and thin overhanging shrubs to let in light. In deep permanent shade, consider swapping the lawn for shade-loving ground cover or gravel instead.