Is moss harmful in the garden and how do you get rid of it?
All dachas have shaded areas. Such areas are comfortable for spending time in hot weather, the problem is that they are often infested with moss. This creates unaesthetic bald spots on the lawn. When moss appears on the garden plot, the yield of vegetables decreases, the growth and development of ornamental plants slows down. But the moss cover not only harms the territory of the dacha, but also brings certain benefits, although it is still necessary to fight against it.
benefit and harm
Some summer residents are of the opinion that moss is good in a summer cottage. But most think the opposite. Such coverage is harmful: if nothing is done, the backyard area will quickly become overgrown. But it’s not that bad. The green coating also has useful properties, they are as follows:
- Getting rid of some insects that damage the plants growing on the site and cause inconvenience to the owners of the dacha;
- thermal insulation of plants prone to low temperatures;
- an increase in the acidity of the soil when growing certain vegetable or ornamental crops;
- the destruction of the fungus.
In some cases, moss can be considered a decorative cover, used as an element of landscape design.
But don’t forget that Moss is an invader. Their growth often takes on a global character. The plant spreads at lightning speed, infecting soil, vegetation, and even buildings with spores.
It suppresses and causes death of crops growing in gardens and orchards. This is because the moss absorbs a variety of beneficial ingredients that crops need. He takes away water and minerals from them. It negatively affects the internal processes occurring in the soil, significantly worsening its quality and fertility.
This plant causes acidification of the soil, its waterlogging, which negatively affects the development of horticultural crops, reduces productivity. Another negative point concerns the aesthetics. Excessive moss growth makes the beds look uncared for, like nobody cares.
Reasons for appearing
If moss began to grow on the site, there is an explanation for this. In some cases, scraping the pest plant off the soil surface helps, but this is a temporary measure. With the advent of spring and autumn, the owner of the site sees that it has reappeared. The reason for this phenomenon may be overmoistening of the soil. Moss loves moisture. If the land is located near a reservoir, drainage should be provided for.
The factors provoking the appearance of moss include a number of reasons.
- water stagnation. Mosses like dense soil that lacks drainage. In almost all areas located in the lowlands or at a short distance from rivers and lakes, soil waterlogging is observed. Drain the soil in the area, forming grooves in which excess moisture accumulates. It is possible to design a closed drainage system by laying pipes underground.
- Increased floor acid. If the moss is upright stems, greenish at the ends and brownish at the roots, this indicates the acid of the soil. To check your suspicion, carry out an analysis of the water-floor substance in the country. The pH value is less than 5.5 that the soil is acidic. Normal values can be reached with dolomite flour or sand, mixed with cut.
- Shaded areas. MSUS like shaded and excessively moistened areas. Take care of the good lighting of the garden or the garden, cut the lower branches of trees and move this area less frequently.
The moss grows the most in spring and autumn. At this point you can use herbicides with a common effect or a dichlorphic solution.
The processing is recommended in the morning. It is desirable that the weather is sunny. The traded zone can be irrigated a few days later. After destroying the pest system, your residues are removed with rake.
In the presence of prophales in the lawn, it is necessary to resume avalanche.
How to fight?
To bring Moss forever, considerable efforts will be required. If it has grown strongly, the fight is needed for a long time, different methods are used for this. If you want to remove Moss on the floor, put it in operation.
Floor doste oxidation
You can remove moss by desoxidating the bottom. If the cause of the pest system is increased, enrich it with a lime substance. The procedure can be carried out in spring. Per 100 square meters. M of the area requires 50 g of kaling solution.
In autumn, lime can be replaced by dolomite flour or wood ash, which thoroughly sprinkle or moisten the places covered with moss. This event must be held if there is no rain and wind outside. If you meet all requirements, the pest system will definitely be destroyed.
Reduction of air humidity
You can remove moss in the garden by reducing the air humidity. If the cause of its appearance is associated with an excess of moisture, they dry the earth. It is easy to reach: Enter a small sand into the upper layer and mix it with the floor. Rigger small grooves so that excess water flows into them. Make sure the floor is not artificially moistened. Reduce the number of regular irrigation.
If spores from Moos are noticed in the garden, it is necessary to carefully loosen the soil. If you carry out this manipulation regularly, you can ensure fast and uniform drying of the earth.
Elimination of excess shadows
The appearance of moss in the garden can be caused by a constant shade. The solution to the problem is to plant plants for which not much sunlight is required. Gradually you will compensate for the moss yourself and stop its distribution. If the source of the shadow is not a high structure, but a stack of unused materials to another location or disposes of it.
The destruction of weeds
So that the moss does not fill the garden, it is necessary to remove weeds regularly. Its appearance can be provoked in the garden by a wealth of winds, nettles and wormwood. The listed weed can cause the invasion of other pests.
Systematically saturated the beds and weeds dispose of how they appear. This is an effective way to destroy the green attacker to prevent his appearance.
feeding
One of the effective ways to combat moss in the country is fertilizer. Try to enrich the floor with minerals that contain nitrogen and iron sulfate. The main thing is that they do not contain phosphorus and similar components.
Mulch
If a green attacker appears in your summer house, it is recommended to carry out mulchen. Such a procedure will bring great advantages. It not only protects against the occurrence of moss, but also ensures increased floor ventilation. The mulch makes its structure looser. Another plus of this procedure is that it helps to maintain an optimal level of moisture.
Straw, wood shavings, needles are used for mulching.
Mechanical distance
If the area is covered with moss, you can remove it mechanically. To do this, you have to use a special tool. They carry the top layer of earth about 3-5 centimeters and recycle them. Then the floor is sprinkled with dry lime and waited 24 hours. Then the floor must be moistened and wait a few more days.
After 72 hours, the corrected area is covered with a new layer of fertile soil.
Leveling the bed
Moos is most common in the pits. Moisture accumulates in such areas, and sunlight is not enough.
The solution to the problem will be the alignment of the beds, the removal of depressions and tubercle.
The use of drugs and folk remedies
Another effective way to deal with the green attacker is the use of chemicals. With the help of herbicides, moss growth is burned out. They also destroy the spores of a harmful plant, inconspicuous processes. However, you only have to use them in quiet conditions.
A summer resident who chose herbicides to combat an attacking plant should not neglect personal protective equipment – a mask, long gloves. The affected areas are treated with a spray and after 2 days the floor must be washed thoroughly with water. Chemical preparations from this series contain iron, copper or ammonium.
The use of herbicides is an effective method of removing moss that has affected paved paths, tree cuts or columns between stones. In some cases, copper or iron sulfate is used to destroy a pest plant.
The penetration of moss on the construction site is an unpleasant phenomenon. This plant gives gardening many problems. It grows at high speed, affects different plants and absorbs a large amount of nutrients. But you can get ready with the attacker if you start fighting in good time and take systematically preventive measures.
How to remove moss on the construction site: the most effective way
If the question arises how to get rid of moss on the site, the most effective approach is not to destroy it at all costs, but, if I can say, to understand the philosophy of life of these amazing organisms.
Thanks to spores, the plant can spread quickly and conquer new areas that are inaccessible to other species.
Moss on the beds or on the trees in the garden triggers ambivalent feelings. On the one hand – aesthetic enjoyment. Moose are beautiful and many try to decorate their properties. But on the other hand, the possessive tones of the summer residents act – someone tries to lower in the garden without being asked and to withdraw their food and other crops of food and other crops! Let’s try to find out whether this mult i-year plant can be seen as weeds and how to deal with it.
Which mosses are most common in the garden?
The history of mosses (briophytes) has more than 360 million years. During this time, they perfectly learned to adapt and survive in the most extreme conditions (unlike dinosaurs). Today there are more than 25,000 species of biofites that have spread widely in different climatic zones from the tropics to the arctic latitudes.
Different types of briophytes are commonly used in landscape design. For example, they can fill the space between the stones of the garden paths
The role of the roots in the moss is performed by thin filamentary processes – risoids, with which the plant is held on the surface and receives water with nutrients. Russian summer residents most often have to deal with representatives of three classes of these perennial plants.
liverworts
These are the oldest representatives of briophytes. The name came about due to the similarity of the shape of the plant with the shape of the human liver. Although most of the “livers” in the tropics are found in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, you can often find a representative of this class – a polymorphic fringe.
Marshanty – heterosexual genitals in the form of umbrellas are located above the layout
Marshant grows on the base. The body of the plant – a multi-layered plate (lay word) – is not divided into leaves and stem and can reach up to 10 cm in diameter.
Leafstable Mosses
This is the largest class of these plants. In Russia, sphagnum, or peat moss, is very widespread. The presence of carbolic acid in its body allows dead stalks to decompose without decay.
One of the most important characteristics of sphagnum is the ability to absorb water (sphagnum, translated from the Greek “sponge”). One of them can absorb 20g of water
The natural unique properties of sphagnum – its antifungal, disinfectant effect, ability to pass through air, high hygroscopicity, etc. – did not go unnoticed. Sephagenum has long been used in folk medicine.
The green top of the trunk grows by 2-3 cm annually, and the lower part gradually dies
You can learn more about the useful properties and methods of using this plant from the presented video:
Bright representative of Leafstele moss – Kukushkin Len. Most often it forms large colonies and grows in the most unexpected places – on fences, in cavities and on trees, on the ground and on the walls.
During flowering the cuckoo washes at the top of the stem
Kukushkin len has long stems – up to 10 cm, primary – without leaves, secondary – with sharp leaves resembling flax leaves.
Traditional medicine uses cucko o-linen tea as a weakness and agent of urolithiasis. In addition, a decoction of this plant was used against uterine bleeding and mixed with red wine and honey. Kukushkin Len is also a traditional insulation in the construction of wooden houses.
The range of distribution of another representative of Leafstele – cakes or syntrychia of rural territory from steppes to arctic tundra. Tortula grows densely with yellow-green branching stems 1-10 cm high.
Syntrychia can grow on sandy soils, rocks, protruding roots and cortex of trees, houses (including concrete), wall walls (including concrete)
Antocerot mosses
The name of the plant comes from the Greek words “flower” and “horn”. They differ in that their dark green lays take the form of sockets that fit tightly into the ground and shed callus spores. They prefer clay soils.
Anthoceros smooth appears in beds, furrows and flower beds in early spring
Moss in the garden: what to do
Getting rid of moss in the garden is quite difficult. But if it is discovered, it is not worth panicking and destroying it.
Firstly, the plant should not be categorically classified as a weed, and secondly, its appearance can help diagnose problems that have arisen. If found in a vegetable plot or garden, this is evidence that the site’s ecosystem (especially in the soil) has changed for the worse. Experienced summer residents can easily read such a message and understand the reasons for the appearance of moss:
- light green tips of long and straight moss stalks indicate increased soil acidity;
- Low stems / thalli firmly attached to the ground indicate a phenomenon such as high soil moisture (due to the close occurrence of groundwater, excessive irrigation, etc.).
Among other things, it is worth noting too high density and insufficient aeration of the earth, a lack of sunlight (mosses prefer shade) and an excess of fertilizers. In greenhouses – insufficient ventilation. When all these reasons are eliminated, the uninvited guest can be easily removed. If you ignore its appearance, the situation will gradually worsen – the moisture and acidity of the soil will increase, the soil will become even denser.
Step One: Remove excess moisture from the soil
Before determining the cause of waterlogging, it is worth reducing or stopping watering, while adjusting the water-air regime: digging drainage grooves to drain excess water around the site, improving the physical properties of the soil – adding sand , mulching (preferably in early summer), improve ventilation (poke more holes in the ground with a pitchfork).
A good way to ventilate is a simple trick: walk around the site in special garden shoes with metal spikes – ventilating sandals
Step two: the fight against high soil acidity
One of the main reasons for the appearance of moss is the increased acidity of the soil. If no device or indicator is available to determine acidity, you can determine whether it is normal or not by using:
- Chalk. Pour warm water (5 tablespoons) into the bottle, add soil (2 tablespoons) and crushed chalk (1 teaspoon). Place a rubber fingertip on the neck. Shake the bottle for 5 minutes and watch the fingertip. If it is filled with gas and completely straightened – the soil is strongly acidic, not completely – slightly acidic, if there is no gas – the acidity is normal;
- Black currant leaves. Pour 5-6 fresh leaves into a mug with boiling water and let cool. Then add 1 teaspoon to the broth. Earth and observe the color indicating acidity (red – increased, green – slightly acidic, blue – normal);
- glass and acetic acid (9%). On a piece of glass you need to put a thin layer of earth and sprinkle with vinegar. If the soil is normal, there will be abundant foam, with high acidity, foam will not form, etc.
If the test confirms high acidity, it should be reduced with chalk, fluffy lime and other means.
Using dolomite flour can reduce soil acidity
If the soil is slightly acidic, ash can be used in small amounts. Some cover crops also help reduce acidity – radish, rye, mustard, etc.
Acidity can vary in different areas of the garden, so it makes sense to take multiple measurements.
Step three: Fight against the action of the site
You can get rid of an uninvited hospitality by offering more access to the sunlight. To do this, you may have to have thickened trees crowns, the undergrowth, weed, mowing high grass. Moose prefer shady places and dry out quickly under the sun’s rays.
The special features of the fight against moss in the greenhouse and on trees in the garden
The reasons for the appearance of moss in greenhouses and greenhouses differ practically from the above. The first thing to do is to fan ventilation and monitor the ventilation of the room and monitor the air temperature. An effective addition is the processing of all wooden surfaces with a soap solution, which means that the upper layer of the earth (at least 3-5 cm) is removed. Moos on the trees can be removed mechanically – treat with a brush with hard bristles or wooden scraps and then the cleaned place with a solution of copper sulfate (3%). In some articles, you advise metal brushes and chips, but a tree can suffer.
It is advisable to clean the bark of trees from moss in the early spring, as many garden pests hide from the cold weather
You can find out how you can handle briophytes on garden trees from the video presented:
Methods of physical destruction
Eliminating the direct causes of the appearance of the Moscow articles will lead to their disappearance. You can accelerate the process through the methods of its physical destruction:
- mechanically. The process of the manual cracks of the plant delivers good results, although it differs in workbooks. In this way you can clean the walls and roof of buildings, summer huts, more effectively.
- Use of an opaque black film. It should be covered with an infected area until the moss disappeared. Minus – This section cannot be used before the end of the fight;
- By replacing the upper layer of soil. This method requires a large amount of work and a lot of time, effort and additional expenses.
- With the help of herbicides (glyphosate, iron sulfate, etc.). Chemical preparations should be used on the walls of the buildings of the personal property, on paths, fences, etc., where chemistry cannot get into cultivated plants and on the floor.
Video
From the videos presented, you can learn how to fight with representatives of Moosen in the country and how to prevent their appearance on lawns:
An enthusiastic gardener, beekeeper and gardener, not indifferent to dogs and cats and other pets. Spring, summer and autumn spend the country and experiment on the beds. Glades to communicate with “advanced” summer residents and find something new and useful for themselves. Collect the best methods for preparations and recipes for cooking dishes. He is happy to share his discoveries and secrets with the readers.
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The birthplace of Pfeffer is America, but Ferenc Croat (Hungary) was carried out in the 1920s. XX century in Europe, mainly in the Balkans. Perez already came to Russia from Bulgaria and therefore got his usual name – “Bulgarian”.
Humus – rotted manure or bird droppings. It is prepared like this: manure is piled up in a heap or heap, embedded in sawdust, peat and garden soil. The collar is covered with a film to stabilize temperature and humidity (this is necessary to increase the activity of microorganisms). Fertilizer “matures” within 2-5 years – depending on external conditions and the composition of the starting material. The result is a loose, homogeneous mass with a pleasant smell of fresh earth.
Both humus and compost are rightly the basis of organic farming. Their presence in the soil significantly increases yield and improves the taste of vegetables and fruits. In terms of characteristics and appearance, they are very similar, but should not be confused. Humus – rotted manure or bird droppings. Compost – rotted organic residues of various origins (spoiled food from the kitchen, tops, weeds, thin twigs). Humus is considered a better fertilizer, compost is more accessible.
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