Removing Moss from Brick Patio
Hi! We have a brick patio in the backyard that has a layer of moss growing over the bricks. The bricks were put in with only sand and not with mortar to keep them in place(go figure). How can we remove the moss ourselves? take a strong brush, rent a powerwasher, throw a bucket of…
Hi!
We have a brick patio in the backyard that has a layer of moss growing over the bricks. The bricks were put in with only sand and not with mortar to keep them in place(go figure).
How can we remove the moss ourselves? take a strong brush, rent a powerwasher, throw a bucket of vinegar water solution down?
Any tips?
I don’t live in Brooklyn but I do know moss as I live in Oregon. The sand has nothing to do with letting the moss grow. Moss doesn’t grow in sand. I have a large agragate (not sure of the spelling here) concrete patio and the moss is about a half inch thick in places. It’s not the slimey kind of moss but the stuff that grows in the forest.I remove it but then I forget about it and it comes back.
!1 Use sawdust and a stiff broom.
2 sweep briskly to pull out excess.
3 sweep in the baking soda.
then power wash,
keep sawdust to absorb the moisture. repeat baking soda as needed on a weekly basis good luck Keep it dry! the only thing that kills moss is lack of moisture
Although I’m a usually a big supporter of power-washers, this is a situation where the washer would blow-out the sand between the bricks, creating a mess and something else to fix. The bleach solution works quite well and isn’t as harmful to your garden as you would think, but try to keep it just in the area you want to de-moss. Use a stiff push-broom first to remove larger moss growths, bleach the area, wait about 30 minutes and then re-brush to remove moss remnants. Rinse the area after. Doing this once a year should keep the moss to a minimum.
I have a small powerwasher you can rent for $50, that will blow it off in an hour, and won’t damage bricks as mentioned above.
Oh, and of course, vinegar will do the opposite, it will feed the moss as surely as yogurt does. Or urine.
Bleach seems inelegant to me. Why put something very toxic on the ground when the only thing that’s growing is moss, and when you like it but don’t like how intense (and therefore slippery) the growth is?
Moss needs an acid environment, that’s why the yogurt works. A solution of baking soda and water will chemically “prune” your moss without the side effects that come when you pour bleach all over the ground.
Slurry…essentially a moss smoothie (though not for consumption).
If you don’t want to put it in your blender, you can probably mash with a mortar and pestle. Here’s one URL w/ some more info and links:
http://www.porch-and-patio-ideas.com/tips/decorating-with-moss.html
Yes, I have heard that you can take established moss, throw it in the blender with buttermilk or yogurt — I guess the live culture is important — and then pour it where you want moss to grow (general conditions permitting). I want to do something like this on a shaded, west facing brick wall that has some moss but just isn’t growing fast enough for my taste.
oh what’s “slurry”